By having an anti discrimination policy it means actively opposing discrimination in every area of work, including discriminatory language, bullying and hidden or unintentional discrimination.
By having a recruitment and selection of staff policy in a childcare setting allows open and transparent recruitment and selection that does not put barriers to any section of the community. This policy is designed to encourage a multi-racial workforce that reflects the proportion of different races in the community and also includes male staff and those with disabilities.
This is defined in the Early Childhood Forum in June 2003 as:
This policy will help ensure that in everyday practice that a barrier are broken down for individual groups of children and is a goal for a number of policies and is sometimes used to refer specifically to disabled children or children with special educational needs.
By having a curriculum policy in place which will help to outline the curriculum, resources, equipment and activities that should fully be accessible to all children including those with special needs or with English as an additional language. This could be reflected by having positive images of groups that experience discrimination should be used throughout the setting and links with the community should be strong which then in turn helps to promote diversity.
By having a relations or partnership with parents’ policy in place a setting, helps a setting to recognise that parents and carers are the first educators of their children.
The policy’s aim is to work in partnership with parents and carers in providing an environment that supports and involves them in the setting. A setting can do this by informing parents of how the setting operates, opening times and policies and procedures through written information on notice boards and involve parents in the shared development record keeping about their child and ensure they have access to their child’s developmental records. By having a quality assurance policy a setting helps to incorporate elements of other policies but is designed to ensure that levels of service meet high quality standards across all the work of the setting. Settings may have written quality standards that they aim to achieve and a quality assurance policy will include these together with mechanisms for obtaining and using feedback from service users and other agencies involved. Inspections, regulations, codes of practice and the underlying principles will all contribute to the quality standards.
This policy is used for families who may have a complaint or grievance and should also know about how to make complaints to a regulatory authority or body of inspection i.e. OFSTED. Human resources policies also allow for staff to make complaints in various circumstances if they have felt they received discrimination.
A1 Reflect on the influences of legislation on working practices within early years settings.
In Britain today there are various laws people working with young children and families need to be aware of and work within, because what is contained in these laws affects the many different aspects of work with children, families and colleagues, adults and other professionals.
Legislation is constantly reviewed and new legislation is coming into force all the time. It is crucial for practitioners to be aware of the changes and development in legislation and that they keep up to date with it.
There is a great deal of legislation that workers need to know about as it helps to inform practice and especially work regarding anti discriminatory practice. Some legislation affects workers in the four main countries within the UK particularly Scotland and Northern Ireland’s frameworks are slightly different from England and Wales like the National Curriculum and EYFS.
Practitioners also need to be aware of European laws and other conventions, for example the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child may affect practice. While legislation is significant because it protects people, the one thing it cannot do is change people’s ideologies and attitudes.
Legislation also provides a clear framework for good practice and is put in place to ensure that people are clear of what is legally acceptable and what is not. For childcare workers, good practice should ensure that workers are constantly able to evaluate practice and to receive appropriate support and training so that they can protect the rights of the children and their families. Legislation also helps to influence practice in many ways by ensuring that settings work in line to promote a healthy and safe environment for all children and staff to work in. Working in line with legislation also helps all childcare settings to meet the expectations of the OFSTED inspections and meet the Welfare Standards under the EYFS which is a framework that was introduced by the Childcare Act 2006.
SECTION 2 (1200 WORDS)
E5 Describe TWO (2) strategies which the setting may use to empower children to develop independence and self reliance
Listening to children
An important way in which practitioners can help children is by simply listening to children. To be “heard” refers to the child’s right to speak, participate and decide. The child has the right to be “heard” during all types of activity. This means that adults are listening, observing and respecting the child’s viewpoints when she is speaking, gesturing, playing, creating, and choosing. Young children depend on the adults around them to care for their needs. In order to develop a sense of security that these needs will be met, they need to feel that the adults understand them. When children feel heard they develop a stronger sense of self esteem.
Giving children choice
Everyone likes to have choices in the activities they participate in. Some child care providers think they need to do all the planning and can forget that children need choices. There are some children who will just go along with whatever an adult tells them to do. Others will become angry because they aren’t given the chance to choose for themselves. By giving children choices helps them feel like they have some power and control over what they do. It’s a step in growing up. Everything isn’t planned for them. Making good choices is a skill that children will use for the rest of their lives.
D2 Assess the effectiveness of the strategies which empower children to develop autonomy and self reliance
Listening to children
By listening to children, children will then realize that others value what they have to say and therefore feel accepted as individuals with their own feelings and thoughts. There are many ways that early learning and child care practitioners can help children to feel heard. During circle times children can be encouraged to share their personal stories, opinions and feelings.
Practitioners can encourage children to speak by posing open-ended questions, which will give them the chance to speak and to elaborate. If a child demonstrates interest in something, practitioners can follow up by offering more opportunities for children to try activities related to his interests. By following up on the discussion initiated by the child’s question, it showed the child that the practitioner has heard and appreciated his expression of interest. When children’s questions are taken seriously they feel validated and comfortable to seek answers. Empowering children to seek answers engages them in the learning process.
Giving children choices
When children are given some guided choices appropriately and gradually or whenever possible rather than given commands all the time this helps to build up their decision making ability and self confidence. This is by far better than giving commands alone as giving children commands in upbringing stifles the child’s decision making ability which may result in an overly dependant mindset and a general lack of self confidence.
However, practitioners and parents need to limit the type and number of choices that they give children and for certain life changing and key issues, for example they have no choice in regards whether to do their homework, it is compulsory to do their homework. Also by giving children to choose gives a clear guidance of what can and cannot be done and will feel more positive to have the chance to have some selective choices at times. When parents or practitioners give children choice they both are building a key skill and also laying a solid foundation and providing a path for children’s lives for a brighter future.
C1 Evaluate one theoretical perspective which supports the development of strategies for empowering children.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
(1782 -1852)
Skinner built on Thorndike’s theory in the 1950s and shaped it into the widely recognised ‘Operant Conditions Theory’. While Skinner partly accepted the work of Pavlov, he suggested that humans and animals were actively more involved in their learning and that they drew conclusions as a result of the consequences of their actions. He called the consequences ‘reinforcers’. He suggested that there are three types of reinforcers:
- Positive reinforcers – these meet a need or desire, for example gaining a sticker, winning a prize or enjoying an activity. Skinner suggested that positive reinforcers are the best and most effective type of reinforcers.
- Negative reinforcers – This then results in repeating behaviour in order to prevent something from happening. For example, you wear to learn an apron because other your clothes will be spoiled.
- Punishers – These are strong shocks that are designed to prevent you from repeating an action, for example learning not to touch a hot iron again. Punishers were seen by Skinner as being the last effective way of working with people.
Many early years practitioners find that children will often repeat activities and behaviours if they receive some kind of attention or recognition. A child who is praised is more likely to do something again. Unfortunately, an adult’s attention is such a powerful positive reinforcer that it can also lead to children showing unwanted behaviour in order to get an adult’s attention.
Thus, in some cases ignoring a child’s unwanted behaviour may be the best strategy and then spending more time with the child once he or she is showing appropriate behaviour.
Whilst most psychologists would agree that some of people’s learning takes place in the way that Skinner describes, the behaviourist approach fails to account for why children’s logic and conclusions about the world can be so different from those of adults. It is also a passive model of learning that relies heavily on adult input.
SECTION 3 (300 WORDS)
E6 Give examples of how settings may prepare children for transfer or transition
D1 Explain the key issues relating to practice which supports children to prepare for transition.
At its simplest, transition is a time of change, when children pass through the various stages of life. For the baby this can mean being weaned from milks to solid foods, and for the child it means starting nursery and then school. There are many strategies and examples of how childcare settings can prepare children for transfer or transition. These are listed below:
- Parents can become as anxious as their children about the move to a new class. Practitioners will regularly have meetings for ‘new parents’ before their children start school. Also, most mainstream provisions have meetings when parents can meet their child’s new teachers; where staff can talk to parents formally about the routines and informally to get to know each other. It is an opportunity to show parents the layout of the setting, and all the practical things which parents need to know about and for them to meet new staff.
- Reading books, leaflets, brochures and hearing stories that deal with the subject of transition will prepare and support children. This helps to familiarise children with the transition process and helps minimse the fear of the unknown. Some children whose second language is not English will find it difficult to communicate or interpret the information provided and the setting will need an interpreter to ease the child’s transition.
- Ensuring that all documentation about a child is organised and ready to be passed on to a parent/carer or other professionals as appropriate to the situation- For example a key person may hand on a child’s developmental records.
- Children having comfort objects brought from home will ensure that a child has a smoother transition. Having a comfort object offers children psychological comfort and security especially in unique or unusual situations and also encourages independence.
- Allowing plenty of opportunities for children to express their feelings and emotions through imaginative and expressive play will ease transition and develop self help skills. Imaginative play helps children to work out ‘real life situations’ which then helps them to replay the situations which helps children to create solutions to life which is essential for early childhood onwards. Expressive play helps children to release their emotions which will help a child who has just started in a setting to feel more confident. It will help to learn to express emotion more effectively. By having information given by the parent/carer a setting will be more aware of a child’s particular needs or requirements therefore this partnership is crucial. The role of the key person is also important to provide stability for the child and security for the child.
SECTION 4 (300 WORDS)
E7 Explain the causes and effects of discrimination on children
Discrimination occurs when people are treated unfairly because of stereotypical views held about a group they belong to or are perceived to belong to. There are all kinds of stereotypes and people treat others unfairly based on a broad range of them and can be based on a wide range of aspects. Some examples of these are disability, ethnicity, culture, race and religion.
Children and their families that experience discrimination and inequality can lead to drastic effects. Some of which include missed opportunities that may affect a child’s experiences which can then in turn have a negative impact on a child’s holistic development, low self esteem and confidence which will eventually lead to a child having little sense of self worth or self value for themselves which then children have confused identity and causes them to feel isolated and creates fear of rejection. Inequality and discrimination has a negative effect even if they haven’t been a target of discrimination. If one child is stopped from participating within a group then the rights of the children to participate equally alongside one another are affected. Children should not be exposed to inequality regardless of whether they are the target of it. If children are introduced to discrimination they are being introduced to criminal behaviour.
B1 Discuss how the causes and effects of discrimination may affect practice in the setting
Effective learning development for young children requires high quality care and education by practitioners. Offering an anti-discriminatory curriculum is as much about the way experiences are offered to young children as it is about what activities are done. All children have the right to equal access and opportunity of experiences; this does not happen by chance, it has to be carefully planned and effectively monitored. Children have the right to learn that people must all be valued equally.
The focus for Standard 9 of the Day Care Regulations states that;
A practitioner would need to inform parents and keep them involved with how a practitioner approaches this strategy in order to maintain their support. This will also help a practitioner to ensure they are serving the best interests of your families, respecting families who may not want their cultural differences emphasised in isolation. Practitioners must agree the approach to challenging discrimination by anyone within their setting; this must be reviewed and discussed regularly.
By developing a strategy for equality of opportunity practitioners will need to:
- Carefully evaluate and challenge their misconceptions, fears and prejudices in order to take care that they do not pass these on to the children in their care.
- Carefully evaluate all the materials and equipment in their setting for messages about diversity, determining which materials stay,
- Incorporate anti – discriminatory activities into daily curriculum planning; not add them on as an appendage or special event.
- Use developmentally appropriate activities.
- Plan how to intervene in any discriminatory interactions between children, on any kings of bias, and teach children to care, think critically about and act against discriminatory behaviour.
Children learn through imitation. They need to have good role models. If an individual acts in an anti-discriminatory way in their presence they are more
likely to do so too. It is therefore important that in all that the child carer does they must help the child learn that all people are valuable, whatever their gender, race, ability or background.
Most child care settings do have good, clear written polices about anti discrimination which make it plain that prejudice and discrimination will not be tolerated The child care setting will need to examine whether its practice is inclusive and anti-discriminatory from the perspective of each of the many groups that make up our society and also whether the principles of inclusion are applied to all areas of the child care setting’s practice.
These principles will affect the way
the setting carries out the following activities:
- advertises its services
- operates its admissions systems
- plans, presents and manages play activities for the children
- creates and maintains relationships with the children’s parents
- recruits and manages its staff
The policy should be reviewed regularly. Once the code of practice has been put into effect, the child care setting should regularly monitor and evaluate how it is being used, to ensure that the policy is not merely a piece of paper in a file but a code of practice that is actively followed.
It will also be necessary to make sure that it is being implemented and to decide whether any further action is needed to ensure that it is being effective. Exclusion to certain individuals or groups can happen even though there was
no deliberate intention on anyone’s part, but because some structures and
systems that are set up with best of intentions can accidentally create situations
that:
- prevent some people from finding out about the group and their
- entitlement to join it
- do not encourage all children to develop to their potential
It is therefore important that each of the specified areas of practice is reviewed
as part of the monitoring and evaluation of its anti-discriminatory policy. To
monitor the policy the setting will need to develop ways to measure their
practice against the requirements and targets of the anti- discriminatory policy.
In order to evaluate its practice the setting will need to assess whether the
practice meets the requirements and targets of its policy or whether its practice
Bibliography (internet)
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http://
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