* Showing compassion and sensitivity
* Respecting the child as an individual
* Upholding the child’s rights and dignity
* Enabling the child to achieve their full learning potential.
2. Never use physical punishment.
3. Respect the parents as the primary carer and educator for their child.
4. Respect the contribution and expertise of staff in the care and education field, and other professionals who may be involved.
5. Respect the customs, values and spiritual beliefs of the child and their family.
6. Uphold the Councils Equal Opportunity Policy.
7. Honour the confidentiality of information relating to the child and their family, unless its disclosure is required by law or is in the best interests of the child.’
Beaver.M, page x, 2008
These values should be taken into practice by all care workers.
EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage). This is for children from the age of birth to five years.
All childcare workers must follow the EYFS standards for learning, development and care of children. The responsibilities are planning play and learning experiences in all areas of learning. Monitoring individual children’s progress. Using observations to help the planning of play and learning experiences. Ensuring that each individual child’s interest and abilities are linked in with the play and learning experiences.
Physical punishment is force inflicted on a child for correcting dangerous or bad behaviour. There is and always will be a debate over if you can use physical punishment on children. It is Sweden that was the first country to make all forms of physical punishment illegal in 1979. Then over the year’s more and more countries have joined Sweden.
‘Children are human beings and as such have the same human rights as anyone else. They are amongst the most vulnerable members of society; it is society’s duty to protect them and their rights.’
http://www.nospank.net/shrc.htm
E5
Explain the importance of valuing and respecting all children in the setting
Diversity is including the full of range of children, families and professionals. Diversity is including people’s skin colour, religion, disability and more.
Valuing children will give them self-esteem, children will feel valued. No one will be isolated. Relate to other children, others will also value differences. Learn to be fair and inclusive.
Valuing people in society will allow children and adults have more knowledge about diversity. Children can fulfil their potential. Avoids disaffected youth. Ensure adults have a more positive attitude to diversity.
Valuing people in the setting will gain better behaviour. Tolerance increases. Everyone’s chrematistics can contribute to learning.
‘Children and young person’s act 2008, says that all children’s views and wishes should be taken into account. ‘
E6
Timekeeping
For in college timekeeping is important as showing up on time shows that you want to be there and want to learn. If you show up on time to a lesson you will not miss any of the work. And you won’t disrupt the lesson if you show up late.
In placement it’s good to have timekeeping skills as showing up on time or a few minuets earlier tells your supervisors that you want to be there. Being on time shows respect to others. It also means people don’t have to waste time waiting for you to arrive which is impolite.
Having good timekeeping skills tells people that you are organised and committed. This creates a good impression and people my trust you with more responsibilities.
In an early years setting people my start to count on you being there and if your lat then jobs my not get done and then this interrupts with the smooth running of the session. A parent may not be able to leave for work until you arrive so there is the right ratio of staff in the room.
‘One goal is to help yourself become aware of how you use your time
as one resource in organizing, prioritizing, and succeeding in your studies in the context of competing activities of friends, work, family, etc.’ www.studygs.net/timman.htm
Confidentiality
Every piece of information that you gain about children, their families or staff members will be confidential. Things that would be confidential would be children’s names, addresses, family problems, personal information about staff. You need to be careful with what you say to people, to not tell anyone the information you know that may be confidential. The only time that you allowed to break confidentiality is if a person child or adult is at risk of any harm. Or someone else may be at risk from the results of their actions.
‘Make sure you follow the guidelines set-up by the federal government, state government, the authority that licenses your program, and your employer. These regulations cover what information must be shared (such as certain medical conditions or allergies) and what should be kept confidential.’ www.childcarecentral.com/articles
In college there is confidential information on students and teachers, their names and addresses. Students work and all staff’s work/files are confidential. Teachers that have their students work must not leave them out in the open for everyone to see. Other students could take another’s or copy work.
Communication
In college there needs to be good communication between teachers and students. Teachers need the skill to teach and students need the skill to be able to ask for help or discuss the work. Students need communication with each other to be able to work together is needed. Teachers need the communication with each other to sort out school/lesson schedules.
Communication in placement is important with children, you need to speak clearly for the children to understand what you’ve told them and time to process the information to respond. Communication with the teachers is important so you know what needs doing without any confusion.
‘The purpose of communication is to get your message across to others clearly and unambiguously.’ http://www.mindtools.com/fulltoolkit.htm
E7
Panning you time
Making up a time plan for all work given will help in being able to complete all work on time. Planning time for each assignment will keep you on top of the work and also have some social time.
For in placement you can plan time for each of the observations that have to be done. Make a time plan with your supervisors for when to sign of paper work.
Knowing your preferred learning style
Knowing your preferred learning style will help you leaner much easier. There are three types of learners there are visual, auditory and kinesthetic.
Visual learners learn best from watching how an activity is played out or looking at the information with images and techniques.
Auditory learner is where the learner has to listen to what is being said for them to understand what they must do.
Kinesthetic learner is where the learner actually carries out the physical activity rather than listening or watching.
With these learning styles the auditory is the best way of learning for in college as you can listen to the teacher. Then visual and Kinesthetic are the best for when in placement as you can watch the other practitioners in the placement and you are actually doing the activities/work with the children in placement.
D1
Why it’s important to work with parents.
Having a parent – teacher relationship will benefit the child. When parents work with the child’s teacher they make a supportive team and help the child do the best of their abilities. Parents have the most understanding of their child’s development at home and teachers have more understanding of the child’s development when at school. So teachers and parents need to come together to tell each other of the developments and what they need to do to at home and school to help the child with any problems.
Teachers need to have a good relationship with parents to know what the child likes or dislikes or any allergies.
Teachers can tell the parents what the children have been learning so then the parents can somehow extend the learning at home, example is that if the children are learning about money at school the teacher can tell the parents this and the parents can continue this learning at home or talk about the money when going to the shops.
Why it’s important to work with professionals.
The importance of working with professionals is to care and protect children. The professionals that you may work with are General Practitioners, health visitor, Learning Disability Nurses, Paediatrician, Social Worker ‘s and many more. All these professionals have a job to do and that is to take care of children and families. If any of them make just one make mistake a child’s life could be put at risk.
Here is an example of when professionals failed to work with other professionals and ended up with having a child losing his life.
Charlie Hunt was failed by agencies that were involved with Charlie Hunt’s case. Charlie hunt was admitted to a hospital months before his death but the agencies involved had failed to notice that the injuries were from abuse. The Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board said ‘that they could not have predicted the abuse but said that lessons must be learned from this.’ www.ukoksannesanders.blogspot.com.
The case reviewed also found evidence of gaps in the information of sharing and planning between agencies. When Charlie was in the hospital, doctors carefully examined Charlie, a quote from one of the doctors who examined Charlie ‘Dr Catto said: “When the child came to us in September 2009, our doctors carefully examined him and were not aware of any concerns of abuse and the child was not on an ‘at risk’ register...’
Dr Catto also says “We take the findings and recommendations of the report very seriously and as one of several agencies involved in the child’s care, we have implemented an action plan based on those recommendations and we will be reviewing these actions regularly to ensure that we have put them into practice” www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk
From this quote it is almost like the Dr Catto is saying that from now on they will look into every aspect of how an injury is caused and that is saying they didn’t do their job to the fullest in the first place or in the past.
Charlie had also been to see his GP who held enough information to consider abuse but all this was not explored further and is just another missed opportunity.
It is also said that the mother of Charlie Hunt has a history of relationships with domestic abuse in them. There have also been concerns raised about her parenting with her two older children when she was living someplace else. Those children have been subject to care proceedings after allegations of a past partner of the mother assaulted one of them.
D2
Characteristics of multi-agency team
* They are made up of a range of services that share a common location, philosophy, vision and agreed principles for working with children and young people.
This is telling us that all the people that make up the multi-agency team are in the same area. And that they all agree on how to care for children and young adults.
* It is a visible ‘service hub’ for the community, which is perceived by users to offer cohesive and comprehensive services.
There is a specific place for where the team is set up and is for everyone in the community to use.
* The management structure facilitates integrated working.
All work is structured and organized for everyone to work cooperatively.
* There is a commitment by partner providers to fund and facilitate integrated services.
* They are usually delivered from a school or early years setting.
* Staff work in a coordinated way. This is likely to include some degree of joint training and joint working.
This is saying that different people in the team may need to train or work together for a specific situation and when they do need to work together they will be able to do this affectively.
* Service Level Agreements (SLAs) set out the precise relationship between the home agency and the multi-agency service, including the basis on which staff are employed.
* The manager may be a member of the school or early years setting (e.g. a head teacher), or they may be recruited externally.
Some multi-agency teams are part of a school so the manager of the team may be the head teacher of the school.
‘The CAF is a shared assessment and planning framework for use across all children's services and all local areas in England. It aims to help the early identification of children's additional needs and promote co-ordinated service provision to meet them.’
http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/caf
Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a shared assessment which is used with all the different children services in the same multi-professional team. This is to help early identification of need and promote provision for children and young people.
C1
Reasons why we need to listen to children’s views.
We need to listen to children to know what they want.
If a child doesn’t like a certain work topic in school we need to be able to find a way for that child to start enjoying the work.
Listening to children can even help if there is any abuse happening. Example is if a child comes up to you and say’s “I don’t want to go in that class with that teacher”, you need to listen to the child and ask for the reasons why. It could be physical abuse but it could also be emotional abuse, as the child has told you that the teacher told the child they were too stupid to do something. And now that child doesn’t feel comfortable in that class and maybe other classes and just stop’s trying to do anything, encase of looking stupid.
Respecting children’s opinions is important.
“The importance and relevance of listening to the views and experiences of young children is not a new concern; as early as 1924 Susan Isaacs, founder of the Malting House experiential school in Cambridge, promoted the importance of actively listening to the children in our care. In 1989 the United Nations approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This set out children’s rights to have their basic needs met in terms of survival, protection, health care, food and water and their rights to the opportunities which help them to reach their full potential through education, play and sport.” http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/listening-to-the-views-of-very-young-children-2500
B1
Explain why it is important that practitioners understand the limits and boundaries of their role when working with children
Limits are for people to know what the rules or expectations are. Boundaries are giving the people freedom to work within those limits.
You need to be aware of the placements policies.
There are four areas that are important for practitioners to pay attention to when thinking about their limits and boundaries: health and safety, managing children’s behaviour, child protection and confidentiality.
Health and Safety – keeping children safe is everyone’s responsibility. You need to know what to do if you notice something that is hazardous and if you are with a child and they have an accident. You also need to understand and follow the placements policy for hygiene.
Managing children’s behaviour – it is important to know what the policies are for when managing children’s behaviour. You will need to find out what kind of situations you can intervene in and how to do so. There needs to be a careful balance between playing with children, encouraging children to do activities and not distracting children when they are meant to be concentrating on an activity. Then you should observe the other staff on how they manage children’s behaviour and what limits and boundaries on this are.
Child protection – you need to be aware of how to keep children safe. Every setting has a child protection policy which needs to be read carefully, understood and taken in action. It is important to know what to do and who to tell if a child tells you something that may be signs of abuse.
Confidentiality – in placements you find out a lot of information and any information you do learn is going to be confidential so it must not be shared with anyone. If you are not sure on what information is confidential or common knowledge then you should treat it as confidential or ask your supervisor.
The theorist Erik Erikson believes that having strong relationships is good for a child’s development. Having boundaries keeps relationships strong.
‘Boundaries provide guidelines for behaviour and help children to learn what is socially acceptable and socially unacceptable behaviour. They learn self control and self discipline and begin to set limits for themselves.’ http://www.childalert.co.uk/article.php?articles_id=69
A1
Reflect on the importance of a child centred approach in early years settings.
The child is the centre of everything.
Child centre is looking at the child’s process, the child’s like and dislikes. The child centre approach plans activities to build on previous experiences. This approach also lets children gain self-esteem and confidence and increase on their knowledge. Child centre helps children reach their full potential.
The child centre approach is good for kinaesthetic learners as it there are always hands on activities.
In child centre they use learning journeys for each child. Learning journeys has a range of pictures and description of the child doing various activities. These learning journeys are then reflected on for the child to look back on the work they have done.
There are a couple negative points to the child centre approach. That the children are being independent there is more planning to be done so there is something for all the children. And it may be costly as more resources will be needed and you might need more staff.
If planning wasn’t child centre then another way is adult led planning, this is where the activities are led by an adult. Positive side of this is that having someone lead or teach you pass they can pass on the information easier. Adult led lets the adult observe the children more and see their development.
There are some negative points on this as well. Children can become to dependant on the adults and not try or want to learn or do things for themselves. The adult doesn’t look at each individual child; they just look at the children as a whole group and doesn’t teach the child to their level.
Reggio Emilia is a programme of early childhood education. The name is from a town in the hills of northern Italy were the programme was developed. This was developed in 1945 after the Second World War. The schools were originally funded by parents, then in 1946 Loris Malaguzzi a primary school teachers who also studied psychology, became involved with setting up pre-schools organised and run by parents in Reggio Emilia.
‘His traveling exhibition The Hundred Languages of Children (originally entitled If the Eye Jumps Over the Wall) was instrumental in bringing his educational philosophy to a wider audience of teachers and parents worldwide. Opening with the words ‘Il bambino e fatto di cento’ (literally, ‘The child is made of a hundred’), Malaguzzi's manifesto goes on to say:
‘The child has a hundred languages (and then a hundred hundred hundred more) but they steal ninety‐nine. The school and the culture separate the head from the body. They tell the child to think without their hands, to do and make without their head, to listen and not to speak, to understand without joy, to feel love and awe only at Easter and Christmas. They tell the child to discover the world that is already there.’’
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/3176/Loris-Malaguzzi.html
Bibliography
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/3176/Loris-Malaguzzi.html
http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/caf
www.ukoksannesanders.blogspot.com
http://www.mindtools.com/fulltoolkit.htm
www.childcarecentral.com/articles
www.studygs.net/timman.htm
http://www.nospank.net/shrc.htm
BEAVER.M, 2008, CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION, LONDON, THORNES
www.care-plan-management-system.co.uk
TASSONI.P, 1998, CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION, OXFORD, HIEINEMANN,
http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/listening-to-the-views-of-very-young-children-2500
http://www.childalert.co.uk/article.php?articles_id=69