Experts agree that high-quality early childhood education promotes the healthy cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of young children. Decades' worth of evidence shows that the highest quality early education is child-centred and play-based. And yet, in many places, early childhood education today is dominated by skills-based, academically-oriented, test-focused teaching.

We seek to change that.

As an organisation of educators, university-based researchers, and early years providers, the IFS provides an international forum for the development of child-centred and play-based educational theories and practices, especially but not exclusively those associated with the inventor of the Kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852).

‘So far from home’: Tracing the endeavours of three Froebel trained teachers from Edinburgh, who migrated to New Zealand in the early 20th century

A project by Kerry Bethell and Helen May The International Froebel Society (IFS) conference planned in Edinburgh for June 2020 was cancelled due to the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic including the shut down of international travel and the ‘lockdown’ of countr...

POSTPONED: IFS 2020 Conference in Edinburgh

(17 March 2020) To all IFS conference participants, colleagues and friends, It is with regret that we announce the postponement of the 9th Biennial Conference of the International Froebel Society, which was scheduled to take place in June 2020 in Edinburg...

New: Irish Froebel Network

Colleagues at Maynooth University's Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood are working to create an Irish Froebel Network to promote Froebelian practice in Ireland. Practitioners in Early Childhood and Primary sectors are especially welcome to part...

New Book: Routledge Int’l Handbook of Froebel and Early Childhood Practice, Tina Bruce, Peter Elfer, Sacha Powell & Louie Werth, eds.

Routledge's International Handbooks series has published a new volume of essential reading for all those interested in the history, analysis, and practical implementation of Froebelian principles in education. The new Routledge International Handbook of Froe...