The Act states that the EYFS will be mandatory from September 2008 for all providers offering education from birth to 5 years. It has also led to quality provision which is affordable and gives greater choice to parents. The Childcare Act 2006 is thinking to offer a compulsory childcare register to children aged 5 and over.
E4)
Susan Isaac:
Key dates:
- In 1885 on the 24th May Susan was born in Bromley Cross, Lancashire.
- In 1907, she enrolled to train as a teacher of young children (5- to 7-year-olds) at the University of Manchester.
- 1916-33 Tutor in Psychology University of London
- 1922 –Married Nathan Isaacs
- Began her own practice in psychoanalysis in 1923
- 1924-27 Principal of Malting House School, Cambridge
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1929 The Nursery Year was written (Routledge) –Book for parents
- 1933-43 Head of Department of Child Development, University of London, Institute of Education
- 1948 Died in October
Her theory:
- Susan Isaacs was the first person to bring together education, psychology and psychoanalysis
- Believed parents are main educators of their children
- She believed institutionalised care for children before the age of 7 was a danger.
- Believed in promoting children’s emotions and feelings.
- Was an inspired nursery teacher at Malting House school in Cambridge in the 1930s
- Believed that children learn through their own play.
- She emphasised on cross-curricular play.
- She tried to ensure children had freedom of action and emotional expression in her School.
- Social interaction is an important part of play and learning.
- The emotional needs of the child are of high importance.
- Symbolic and fantasy play could be a good for a child’s feelings.
- Adults should guide a child’s play, but on the whole they should have freedom to explore.( child led)
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“What imaginative play does, in the first place is to create practical situations which may often then be pursued for their own sake, and this leads on to actual discovery or to verbal judgment and reasoning” (p.99)
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Isaacs ,S. (1930) Intellectual Growth in Young Children London: Routledge
- Developing a child’s independence is important for them to develop as an individual.
- She believed in the importance of play and relative freedom.
- Isaac’s theories were especially influential in the 40’s and 50’s.
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The Malting House School had equipment for children to play and experiment with.
- The teachers set up all equipment so that it was easily accessible for the children, placed on low level shelving that was easy to see and reach
- Teachers at Malting House School shared children’s interests and joined in with their experimenting, learning and discoveries.
- Teachers encouraged talk amongst children, both with each other and with the teachers
- Susan was especially interested in the emotional needs of children so she believed that children’s fantasies should be promoted and their successes should be emphasised.
- Isaac believed that free play was very important for young children.
Albert Bandura:
Key dates:
- Albert Bandura was born December 4, 1925, in the small town of Mundare in northern Alberta, Canada.
- He was educated in a small elementary school and high school
- He received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1949.
- He went on to the University of Iowa, where he received his Ph.D. in 1952.
- It was then when he came under the influence of the behaviourist tradition and learning theory.
His theory:
- He suggested that environment causes behaviour, but behaviour causes environment as well
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He labelled this concept reciprocal determinism.
- Was an environmentalist, meaning he believed that the child's environment shapes learning and behaviour and human behaviour, development, and learning are thought of as reactions to the environment.
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The bobo doll studies: He made a film of one of his students, a young woman, beating up a bobo doll (a bobo doll is an inflatable, egg-shape balloon creature with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back up when you knock him down.). The woman punched the clown, shouting “sockeroo!” She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer, and shouted in an aggressive language. Bandura showed the film to groups of kindergartners. They then were let out to play. In the play room were several observers with pens and clipboards, a new bobo doll, and a few little hammers.
- What was observed: A lot of little kids beating up the bobo doll. They punched it and shouted “sockeroo,” kicked it, sat on it, hit it with the little hammers etc... In other words, they tried to copy what the woman in the film did.
- He called this ‘’observational learning’’ or ‘’modelling’’, and his theory is usually called ‘’social learning theory’’.
His findings:
- Firstly if you are going to learn anything, you need to pay attention to it.
- Secondly you must be able to retain (remember), in order to learn.
- Thirdly being able to reproduce something, meaning translate images you see.
- With. all this you can’t do anything unless you are motivated and want to learn
E5)
Why observations support planning to meet children’s learning needs?
- Provides age and stage appropriate activities
- Find out preferences/ interests
- Find out abilities
- Identifies needs/ additional needs
- Planning cycle
- Multi agency working together to meet child’s learning needs once planning is done
Observations are a great way of finding out needs of individual children. Observations can be done by looking, listening, talking etc… Observing a child helps us identify what the child likes, doesn’t like and what their strengths and weaknesses are. If we find out their needs, we can assess from all this, what the child’s requirements are, interest are and what their current development and how they best learn.
After assessing we will try plan what the child needs more help in and how he/ she can be helped with. If children need help in an area we can involve other professionals in meeting children’s learning needs. This is called a multi- professional approach and is vital for children to achieve their full potential.
The CAF (Common Assessment Framework) is a standardized approach to carry out an assessment of a child's additional learning needs and decides how to meet those needs. It can be used by practitioners who work in a children service in England. The CAF is part of Every Child Matters and evaluates additional needs of children. It helps all provisions to work together (Multi Professional Approach). It identifies needs early and avoids multi assessments as the CAF Form is passed onto everyone involved in it.
A CAF Form looks will look like this:
When we observe children we find out what children need to be better in. Some children who have particular special needs who are on the Special Needs Register of a school will have an individual education plan in short called an IEP to help them enjoy and achieve their full potential in their education.
An Individual Education Plan includes:
- Targets- all should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-related).
- Provision- details of extra support that students will get
- Outcomes- students progress and previous targets
This is how an IEP looks like:
E6)
Sure start:
It is a programme run by the government to give all children an excellent start from birth. The programme particularly aims to transform lives of those (children, parents and communities) who live in disadvantaged areas. It is only applied in England.
Its aims are to:
- Provide less advantaged children with childcare
- improve health and emotional development for children of a young age
- support parents as being parents and help them towards employment
Its principles are:
- Working with parents and children
- Services for everyone
- Flexible at point of delivery
- Starting very early
- Respectful and transparent
- Community driven and professionally coordinated
- Outcome driven
Who sure start works with:
- Local authorities
- Primary Care trusts
- Job canter plus
- Local communities
- Public agencies
- Voluntary and private sector organisations
Sure start aims to give children ( 3 and 4 year olds) free education, affordable and a high quality childcare. It also runs after school clubs in all areas. Children centers and health and family support are provided particularly in disadvantaged areas where they are needed. Sure Start does this with greater support where there is greater need through children’s tax credit, children’s centers and Sure Start local programmes.
Sure start is a very successful government programme which contributes to assessment of children’s needs.
NSPCC:
Is a programme which aims to help end cruelty to children. It offers help to children and parents. It is free and confidential to everyone who needs support.
All the services it provides are:
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The NSPCC helpline- it gives support to children who are in danger.
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- they help children and their families put their relationships back as normal and help them overcome domestic violence
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- children who can’t achieve their full potential due to emotional and psychological problems are provided with counseling services in schools.
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in court.
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- providing child protection services in communities
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- The NSPCC works with a network of teams in partnership with the police. The IEAS undertakes enquiries of people who may be a risk to children and young people and it identifies children who were abused and it ensures that appropriate agencies take effective action to protect them.
E8)
Importance of consulting with parents and others when planning and providing learning opportunities:
- Parents are their child’s first educator, because they know what their child’s needs are, what they are good at and what they need more support in. They also know what resources their children like to use to learn.
- Effective partnership between schools and parents will make the overall environment of the school positive and therefore the child is more able to learn and achieve. It will make parents and school understand each other better.
- When providing and planning learning opportunities to children we need to make sure we explain to the parents in for example parents meetings, on the phone, by sending letters home how we are going to plan learning opportunities for their children.
- If outside agencies are involved in helping the child reach his/ her full potential it is the parents’ duty to know who is working with their child.
- Involving parents in decision making is a must. It acknowledges the rights of parents to have their opinions taken into account.
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Involving parents improves the quality of community spirit and also makes everyone work together (cohesion)
- Children feel more satisfied, confident and positive about themselves when their parents and the practitioner work together with respect.
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Practitioners also need to share information with other agencies such as outside agencies. When we work with others outside the setting it is called a multi professional approach. It is essential for us to consult them when planning learning opportunities to children so that when we provide learning opportunities to children we have consistency for them.
Research:
The effects of the Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP) on children’s developmental progress, is a programme for parents whose children are 0-5 years old. This research looks at the effects of the programme on children’s developmental progress. This programme is expanding throughout Britain, but mainly developed in an economically deprived area of Oxford. Its findings are, that children from 3-5 whose parents participated in PEEP were much better in the area of,
- vocabulary
- lang. comprehension
- understanding about books& print
- number concepts,
than those children whose parents didn’t participate in it. This research also found out that children’s whose parents took part n PEEP had much higher self- esteem& confidence to those children whose parents didn’t take part.
This research also shows how important it is for parents to involve in their child’s decision making when thinking about their learning needs.
E10)
Diversity and inclusive practise is all about behaviour in practise. One must value all differences and welcome each and every individual child in the setting. Settings have legal responsibilities to include children and care for their individual needs. Inclusion is important because it develops a sense of belonging to the child their attitudes towards others are also positive. We need to ensure we help every individual meet their full potential and ensure that we work closely with parents and other staff in order to help the child even more. Practitioners should be aware that all children have different interests, abilities and skills etc so they need to be able to plan and meet the different needs and should also make sure they are age and stage appropriate, is there any disabled child, or boy or girl etc. All these factors need to be taken into consideration only then we will be promoting diversity and inclusion in our settings.
The Children Act 1989/ 2004 also clearly states that the welfare of children is paramount (children’s needs& interests come first at all times even if it causes us inconvenience). We need to ensure we adopt this value in our settings, by valuing the differences and respect each individual’s views, opinions and interests and include everyone in all activities. We need to ensure we promote diversity and inclusiveness by involving every in all activities no matter what race, religion, sex, background etc. they are from etc…
Also done throughout the coursework.
D2/ C2)
Importance of recording assessment:
To help children progress, practitioners need to know information about what the children know, understand and are able to do. Through observing children and by taking notes when necessary about what has been achieved, practitioners can can judge about children's achievements and decide on the next steps in learning, that means what can be done or be provided to them in order to achieve their potential. This is called `observational assessment’. They can also exchange information with parents about how children are progressing. This process, known as 'assessment for learning' is the keyl to get good achievement.
Key issues of recording assessment:
When we want to assess children we need to take a lot of key issues into consideration. Before asessing a child we need to make sure we asess them in the right way. That means we have a suitable technique to observe them. We need to have clear aims and a objective target which is SMART. The letters stand for:
- S-Specific-very clearly set out what has to be achieved
- M-Measureable
- Achievable-something which the child will be able to do
- Realistic and Relevant
- Targeted and Timed
Another factor to take into account when recording assessment is that we need to keep all the information we got safe and secure. This means away from people who don’t need to know the information. It should only go into hands who really need to know the information. The recorded informaion also has to be kept up- to- date otherwise there is no point in assessing and it wouldnt help the practitoners help the children in achieving.
Written information should also be locked away. Verbal information about an individual could include, if for example your collegue tells you the development of a child or something private about a child’s family. In this case you must make sure that you don’t tell anybody the information that you know, unless its neccecary to tell a certain person.
Maintaining confidentiality protects children from gossip or any other kinds of abuse. If we as practitioners do not keep private information safe it’s unprofessional and breach of law. The Data Protection Act 1998 clearly states that.
In (Tassoni, (2007), pg. 224), it clearly states, ‘’ that data stored on a person must not be given to anyone without the person’s permission or kept for longer than necessary. Everybody has the right to see any records that are kept about them.’’
We should also make sure if data is saved onto a computer system that it can only be accessed by the people neccecary. One should password protect the data on the computer so that the sensitive data is not harmed in any way. Data should not be kept longer than necessary.
Sharing information is also very important once you have assessed the child. That means we should talk about the childs needs and steps which need or should be taken with other collegues, other professionals coming in from other agnecies and parents also. The information of children such as how they are progressing in for ex. reading skills can be passed onto agencies who are allowed to see the information. For ex. if a child has SEN, the child’s teacher is allowed to give certain information about the child to agencies who can help the child in achieving.
In (Iain MacLead- Brudenell, (2004), pg. 415), it outlines the value of partnership, he says, that, ‘’promoting partnership with parents in the early years will lead to positive outcomes for the children, families, practitioners and setting and communities and society as a whole.’’ We should make sure we communicate regularly with parents, give regular feedback about the child, ask parents about their views and ask for advice about their child, make plans/strategies with the help of parents. If we would not work in partnership with parents, we would not be able to provide the children with enough plans. We find out a lot of information from the parents which help us help the children.
Role of assessment:
How we assess:
- Through listening
- Observing
- Recording
- Discussions
- Make targets which are suitable to achieve for individual children
Why practitioners assess children:
- To find out needs and strengths/ capabilities of children
- Practitioners can support, provide and extend children’s learning
- Practitioners can provide opportunities to children which match to their individual abilities. Provide them with suitable equipment and provide them with outside help (Multi- Professional approach).
- Practitioners can make children achieve their full potential
Types of assessments:
- Written records
- Checklists
- Tick charts
- Event samples
- Target child observations
Formative assessment: ongoing assessing of a child which is done over a long period of time.
Summative assessment: puts findings together as a conclusion.
C1)
In order to plan and provide learning opportunities to meet children’s diverse needs we need to make sure we include all children. Inclusion means identifying, understanding and breaking down barriers to participation and belonging. Practitioners should provide a wide range of motivating opportunities, which are accessible to children, develops& support them. We need to provide a safe learning environment, free from bullying, discrimination etc. where all children& families are valued. It’s also our duty to work together with other professionals to provide the best learning opportunities for individual children. Inclusion is important as it promotes equality of opportunity and promotes fairness to all children. Inclusion is also brings people together regardless of sex, race, culture etc. It’s important to promote inclusion in practise to support children’s ability to achieve and give the more disadvantaged children support/help they need. The Every Child Matters Scheme promotes fair and just strategies by including all children to improve in the 5 outcomes. The Children Act 1989 talks about giving opportunities to all children no matter what their needs are. So for example even if children have different needs like they have English as an additional language they need to be provided with the appropriate resources and if needed a professional who can speak the child’s language. Another example of being fare and include all children is when a child is sitting with lots of other children but not participating in the activity. In this case we need to ensure that we find out why they are not including themselves and try to overcome this situation. The Children Act 1989 therefore promotes inclusion because it allows access to all different individuals. The policies and procedures promote us to be anti bias/anti discriminatory in practise and the Children Act 1989 promotes practitioners to be fair and just to all children no matter what their age, sex, gender, background etc is. The Data Protection Act 1989 is applied to all children. The law promotes fair and just strategies because it safeguards confidentiality of personal data of children. The EYFS also gives guidance to practitoners in how to plan and provide learning opportuntiies to children with different needs. The EYFS has legal requirements which we as practitioners need to meet. They are all set out in the EYFS handbook and help practitioners meet children’s different learning needs. These are called the Welfare requirements. The requirements are designed to help support practitioners in a setting to create a welcoming, safe, secure and stimulating environment which will help children in enjoying and achieving their full potential.
A)
My role as a practitioner in meeting children’s learning needs are to understand and have a clear idea of each and every child’s learning needs and provide different opportunities to individual children as they all have different wants and needs because they all learn in different ways.
Another role is to plan and resource a challenging environment for children which extend children’s learning in various areas of learning.
It’s very important for practitioners that we encourage children to be self- confident and have good self- esteem. The ways I encourage them to develop on them is by praising them, respecting their views/opinions and also provide them with challenging, interesting and stimulating activities. I also encourage children to make good relationships with others and work alongside others, in order to have their social skills developed which will develop the children’s confidence. When a child has good self- esteem and self- confidence they are much more able to achieve in school and in later life.
As a practitioner I recognise that children come from all sorts of different backgrounds, have different family backgrounds, skin colour, religion etc, but we need to respond positively to these differences. If one does that, the children will do the same, therefore, as practitioners by modelling our behaviour whether it’s good or not to the children around us. If one shows children that one values diversity and includes all children in the day to day activities they are going to do the same back to others. One example of inclusion could be when one has to make sure that if for example a child has SEN (special educational need) or EAL (English as an additional language), one has to treat both of them same even if they have different needs. The needs should be met but the children have to be treated equally with respect and valued of being an individual. It is important to do that so that all children meet their full potential (Zone of Proximal Development- ZPD). Also their confidence and self esteem will boost if their individual needs are met and valued. They are more likely to achieve in all areas of development.
I need to also ensure children enjoy good physical and mental health and live and healthy lifestyle. I provide children with water and fresh fruits and vegetables. The Every Child Matters scheme which was put into law in the Children Act 2004 promoted children to be healthy. As a practitioner it is my responsibility to provide children with fruits and vegetables in the setting in lunch times and/or break times and give children the opportunity to go and play outdoors. Parents should also ensure they give children enough fruits and vegetables and go outdoors with their children regularly. If all this is met the children are more likely to achieve. Not only they develop their Physical skills, but also they develop their social skills, social and emotional skills and also their cognitive development. Social skills are developed when children talk to others around them, socialize with them or play with others in as a group. Their Cognitive development develops, because they learn more of the world and others around them.
The Equal opportunity policy is also taken into consideration by all practitioners in the setting so that all children are treated equally with respect and can enjoy and achieve their full potential.
Staff ratio is also taken into account because we need enough staff in a setting to avoid accidents and keep all children safe and in a secure environment.
E7/ D1)
Theme: Music
1st Activity: Making own music instruments out of boxes
Resources needed:
- Glue sticks
- Scissors for both right and left handed children
- Different sized boxes
- Paint in different colours provided in pots
- Paint brushes in different sizes
- Glitter in different colours
- Liquid glue for the glitter
- Variety of stickers
- Tape
- Old newspaper for protecting the floor tables
- Protection for clothing- aprons in good condition
Children involved:
5 at a time
Age of children:
4-5 years old
Where was activity carried out:
Outdoors on a big circle table with 5 chairs suitable to the children’s size
Personal, Social and Emotional Development:
Interacting with others and talking to them about what they are doing or asking the partner to help him/ her in something. This will develop children’s personal skills and make them aware of others around them.
Communication, Language and Literacy:
Children will be talking to others about their work. This will develop their language skills. When the children have to present their ideas to the class they will explain what they made, how they made it and what they needed to make it. This will develop their speech and make them better in explaining things.
Problem Solving:
If any problems arise they might be able to solve them by discussing with partner or teacher. They can talk to each other to solve the problem.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World:
Children will have an understanding of how to make an instrument and how the different instruments look like. This activity will make children find out more about where the different instruments come from and how they are played.
Creative Development:
By actually making the instruments children are being creative. Painting on the instruments when they have finished is also being creative.
Physical Development:
When children are painting their fine motor skills develop. When they are cutting the boxes and sticking them their fine motors skills develop. Colouring and painting also develops their fine motor skills. When children are acting as if they are playing the instruments they will be using their gross motor skills too as they will move their arms and might even be dancing to a song.
Taking into account individual needs of children:
We made sure that the children could all participate no matter what their special needs are such as one child is not able to see fully but we still made sure he participated with the help of his key worker. We also made sure the children were provided with aprons so that their clothes wouldn’t get dirty when going home, because some children’s parents do not wish their children to make their clothes messy with paint. We also made sure we think of every child individually and consider how it would benefit them. We made sure at the end that all the work they did we placed into their record files for future use. I also made sure we considered the health and safety of the children such as tucking in chairs so children don’t fall over them or making sure the painting material is not poisonous in case children put them into their mouth. When I was involved in the activity with the children I made sure that children who were struggling were guided by me. This activity was done outside for those children who like to do things outdoors more than indoors. I made sure all children who like playing outside did the activity. Children who cant concentrate indoors participated in this activity.
2nd Activity: reading books to children on different types of instruments
Resources needed:
- Varity of books
- Reading corner
- If preferred with cushions etc
Children involved:
5 at a time
Age of children:
4-5 years old
Where was activity carried out:
Book corner
Personal, Social and Emotional Development:
When teacher reads the books children will have discussions after the book has finished or teacher might ask children questions during reading the book to make the children talk to others.
Communication, Language and Literacy:
Children can also ask the teacher questions if they want to know about something, they will develop their language by talking to others.
Problem Solving:
By actually reading a book we can find out reasons i.e. why the big instrument makes a louder sound than the smaller instrument. Children can ask teacher or others questions.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World:
Children will have an understanding of where the different instruments come from, how they look like, what the different types of instruments are etc.
Taking into account individual needs of children:
We made sure that the children could all participate no matter what their special needs are. There was one child who had difficulty sitting down. We made sure he had a key worker with him/her during the story reading.
B1)
Margaret McMillan
Influence on today’s practises:
Today it is strongly emphasised to involve parents in early years education as they are their child’s first educators. The Key worker system is also greatly emphasised so that all children reach their full potential. Provision of free school meals and medical services reflect McMillan’s emphasis on importance of good healthy and well being and nutritious and healthy food so that children learn better and effectively.
Susan Isaacs
Influence on today’s practises:
Parents are seen as the main educator of their child who knows their children best. She believed in the importance of play and relative freedom and today free play and child led activities are greatly emphasised. All settings should promote 80% child led activities and only 20% should be adult led. This shows how Isaacs theory influences the planning and provision of learning opportunities today.
