It is very important to ensure health and safety in the setting, In my placement a child crawled on her hands and knees right across a high horizontal bench, which was an activity. Another girl watched and then tried to copy. She was unable to crawl on her hands and knees but found that she could get across by walking. By looking at observations of these children, we found out that the children were motivated to take risks, by imitating each other, for example; they wanted to learn to hop, climb, run, ride a tricycle etc. From looking at the observations , we also saw that the children were not put off by falls, as they were developing coordination and control. In early years settings, my supervisor said that children find their own physical challenges and, in doing so they learned about their own strengths and limitations. These observations showed us that even though children enjoyed taking risks. It was important for us to set in health and safety boundaries so that the children wouldn’t harm themselves or others. According to the statutary framework of the EYFS, “ Providers must take all necessary steps to keep children safe and well. The requirements explain what early years providers must do to: safeguard children; ensure the suitability of adults who have contact with children; promote good health; manage behaviour; and maintain records, policies and procedures”.
As practitioners we took in account of health and safety by doing effective risk assessments. When carrying out any risk assessment it was essential to balance the benefits of an activity with the likelihood of coming to harm. In planning practitioners discussed how they help children to manage equipment or tools which could cause harm. When new equipment is considered, practitioners needed to discuss how they may help children, without taking to many risks and still following health and safety policies.
An important aspect for practitioners is risks, it is important to encourage children to make their own risk assessments and think about the consequences of their actions. For example, In my placement a child was building with wooden blocks, he needed help to see how his building could be made stronger and less likely to fall on the floor. My supervisor told me that this was more effective than telling the child that he can only build so many blocks high or it will fall. According to teaching expertise, “children’s self-initiated challenges involve using resources or equipment in interesting or novel ways to represent something within their personal experience”. In many settings that I have been in, some practitioners stopped children from representing in these ways particularly if a piece of equipment is being moved from one area to another.
E2: Provide information about current influences on play
E2 asks you to describe some issues that affect play and learning today eg. lack of playgrounds and play areas in the community,
fear of child abduction, concerns or health and safety, children preferring to use technology rather than play outdoors, concern for ensuring children met the curriculum learning outcomes, play not being valued or seen as important. You need to find evidence to back up what you think.
There are many current inspirational projects that influence play, for example; the environment, lifestyle, risk assessments etc. One of the main influences on play would have to be the EYFS. According to Education.gov, “The EYFS is a major influence on practice: The EYFS framework received high levels of support from all practitioner groups, and there is a broad consensus that it influences many aspects of daily practice, and improves the quality of experience for young children and their parents”. The EYFS influences play as practitioners are always providing children with activities, equipment and resources to meet the six areas of learning. The EYFS says that, “children should have positive relationships with adults who look after them, and through this we can find out their interests”. By doing this we can give children the opportunity to do things they enjoy which will encourage them to learn through their play. For example; Some children may need extra support if they are struggling with their learning, while others might need to have extension activities. The role of the practitioner would be to consider differentiation, as it would be essential to support children’s learning. As a practitioner you might ask for differentiated input from other practitioners, set differentiated tasks for the children and use variety of resources to support children’s needs. By doing all this you would be considering all children’s learning and ensure that all the children are meeting the curriculum learning outcome.
There are many issues that also affect play and learning today, E.g. lack of playgrounds and play areas in the community, fear of child abduction, play not being valued or seen as important etc. One of the factors that affect play and learning would have to be the lack of play grounds and play areas in the community. Without having playgrounds children are not being able to free play. According to Hudson, S (2001), “Playgrounds provide an opportunity for free play. Free play differs from the structured play of recess or organized sports and games. Playground free play allows children to play any way they choose, supported by a wide range of structures and spaces”. See Appendix 1. This tells us that free play allows the children to explore according to their natural tendencies, and allow them to learn from other children while interacting with a wide range of age groups. By having playgrounds or play areas, Palmer. L research said “that children’s brain development shows that the most crucial time for a child’s development is in the earliest years”. This tells us that the act of play by a child stimulates brain development and function and it also has a key role in building the foundation, organization, and capabilities of the brain. According to Thomas D (1999), “It is very important for children to have many regular opportunities for a variety of gross motor activities”.
Outdoor play in playgrounds also provides different opportunities to stimulate age appropriate physical development, such as in the park, tactile panels, promote manipulation and coordination. The bridges and ramps promote loco motor skills and slides and swings promote balance and coordination. Brown.P (2001) says, “ Depending on the child’s developmental stage, these and other play components help the child encode and decode movement, inhibit reflexes and control movements (reaching, grasping, releasing), and progress from primary stages to motor stage movements (running, hopping, dynamic and static balancing, axial movement)”. The BBC published a story about playground shortage, where they said that, “Children in England are missing out on play because of a shortage of outdoor areas, according to a campaign group. The campaign found out that the survey revealed there was one playground for every 694 children, and about 752 children per acre of play area. Its research showed there were 16,134 playgrounds in England, serving an estimated 11.2 million children aged under 16”.See Appendix 2. One way that schools are addressing the lack of playgrounds is the creation of forest schools. While public schools offer standard playground structures, forest schools are using unique opportunities for outdoor play. Forest Schools integrate access to woodland play into the daily curriculum for students. O’Brien describes Forest Schools as an “inspirational process that offers children, young people, and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self esteem though hands on learning in a woodland environment.” Studies done on Forest Schools in Surrey, United Kingdom show that woodland learning can “increase self esteem and confidence, improves social skills... improve motivation and encourage concentration..and improve physical motor skills.”
Another issue that affects children's play and learning is the fear of child abduction. According to the BBC News said that, “Almost half of parents (49%) said their children did not play outside because of fears about "stranger danger". See Appendix 3. Without parents allowing children to play in the outdoors children are losing out on the benefits of play. According to Bjorklund, 1997; Bruner, 1972, “Play provides a non-threatening context for children to learn about their world and gain skills necessary for adult life” . This tells us that through interaction with the environment during play, children are able to gain control with the development of a range of manipulative and motor skills. They learn new skills and concepts, discover the world, and learn about themselves and others through their interactions in a variety of social situations. “Play also facilitates language development, creative thinking and problem-solving, and helps children deal with complex and competing emotions” (Dempsey & Frost, 1993; Wyver & Spence, 1999; Zeece & Graul, 1993). According to Nursery World, “Children with regular access to playable spaces are much more likely to enjoy childhood and grow up healthier and happier. We need to build parents’ confidence to let their children play out, by tackling the real barriers such as traffic and the lack of good places to play”. See appendix 4.
E4 Include examples of different theoretical models of how children play and learn
E4 the speaker from Burnley told you about applying theory to practice and this criteria needs you to consider how theories of play and learning help us to support children's development. Give exmples from placements.
Evaluate the impact of these factors on children’s lives today. How have the current issues changed play? Advantages and disadvantages these issues bring.
There are many different theoretical models of children’s play and learning. One of these is Piaget, play and imitation, this is an important part of Piaget's theory. Piaget believed that play is almost an adaptation to children without any attempt to adapt to reality. For example; the child who plays with a block, that is an airaplane to him, isn’t concerned about the design of the block. The child is just adjusting the wooden block into an existing schema of airplanes. Imitation is also an important part of children’s learning as children always imitate everything that they are fascinated by. For example; In my setting the children were watching fireman Sam and a house was burning in it. At free play time the children were playing in the blocks. Their "house" caught fire and the children took the roles of the fireme
n and the people caught in the burning building. As they played this situation through, they were making a serious attempt to accommodate the reality which they had seen. Play and learning unites the individual child to the environment and the child's reality. This gives and takes in play and imitation is one way that the child learns about the child's world.
Another theoretical model of how children play and learn would Erikson’s theory. He believed that the world of play is very important in the early stages of a child's development. It offers the child a safe place to work through conflicts of the child's life. For example ; A child was seen pushing a doll in nursery in the same way that the child was pushed earlier by another child. For children play is a safe world where the consequences are not too strong or the limits too rigid. From observing children in the setting; Some of the favourite things of children were role playing with wild animals, monsters, parents, and teachers. All of these play situation put the child in charge. Erickson’s theory is also linked with the environment; An environment which provides materials, equipment, space, time, and understanding adults allows the child to organize the child's ideas, feelings, and fantasies into a plan for play. The initiating child can be an disturbing child using shouting, running to express intent etc. Play affords the exploration and manipulation of ideas and relationships without too much doubt, shame, guilt even though the child is yet unskilled.
Another model would be Vygotsky, who believed that play is a means of submitting immediate satisfaction for children, instead of tantrums; the child fulfils its needs in fantasy play. He also believed that the children learn to live within their imposed rules during fantasy play; play allows the child to practice instructions. Play, for Vygotsky, was important for a child, as behaving more maturely than at other times. “In play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.” In fantasy play children can work at the top of their Zone of Proximal Development.
Overall Piaget Erikson and Vygotsky all agree that the child uses play for self-teaching. The child plays through situations very much like an adult thinks through a situation. Also, fantasy play is a appearance of representative illustration, the child represents objects and ideas through play situations.
B1 Evaluate how the current influences on play and different theoretical models affect
the planning and provision of learning opportunities
Can theoretical models of play be implemented today spite of the problems in providing play? (Piaget – ‘hands on’, Montessori – discovery, High Scope – plan, do, review, Froebel & Bruce – free flow/outdoors etc.)
There are many current inspirational projects that influence play, for example; the environment, lifestyle, risk assessments etc. One of the main influences on play would have to be the EYFS. According to Education.gov, “The EYFS is a major influence on practice: The EYFS framework received high levels of support from all practitioner groups, and there is a broad consensus that it influences many aspects of daily practice, and improves the quality of experience for young children and their parents”. The EYFS influences play as practitioners are always providing children with activities, equipment and resources to meet the six areas of learning. The EYFS says that, “children should have positive relationships with adults who look after them, and through this we can find out their interests”. By doing this we can give children the opportunity to do things they enjoy which will encourage them to learn through their play. For example; Some children may need extra support if they are struggling with their learning, while others might need to have extension activities. The role of the practitioner would be to consider differentiation, as it would be essential to support children’s learning. As a practitioner you might ask for differentiated input from other practitioners, set differentiated tasks for the children and use variety of resources to support children’s needs. By doing all this you would be considering all children’s learning.
Need to be finished…..
E5- Include an explanation of how observations can inform planning to meet children’s learning needs.
Observations, assessment and planning all support children’s development and learning. Planning starts with observing children in order to understand and consider their current interests, development and learning. Observations describe the process of watching children in our care, listening to them and taking note of what we see and hear. Observations also link up with assessments, practitioners assess children’s progress by analyzing observations and deciding what they tell us. We also find out information about children’s care and learning needs from their parents and from these we then can identify the children’s requirements, interests, current development and learning.
It is important for practitioners to observe before planning as it gives them an objective assessment. It also allows practitioners to Identify the ‘next steps’ based on what is seen while at the same time recording the child’s activity at different times and in different situations. By observing before the assessment other practitioners would also have comment’s to build a full picture of what happend and provide feedback for parents and professionals for their personal comments. When planning it is a good idea for practitioners to use observations. This is so they can have awareness of the child’s stage of development , checking if it is at the right level for the child. Practitioners would also be able to base their ‘next steps’ on skills and abilities that were shown and plan for any particular need, special equipment or support that is needed for the child. When choosing the observations, practitioners should use the child’s preferred activities, regular choices and current interests,. This is so other professionals, parents, staff can see where they can put the childs interests into the setting. Observations can also be used to plan contiouous development. This would be ensuring the rights of the child are met in the activities provided, by looking at equality and inclusion. Practitioners would also be able to plan assessments that will enable the child’s progress to be tracked and monitored but at the same time Identifying where support and advice from a multi-agency team can help the child to develop and progress.
D2- Include an explanation of the key issues in recording assessments
There are many key issues in recording assessments, as they are watching children and evaluating their learning and development. Children have a key role to play in assessments and they should be encouraged to contribute to all stages as and when appropriate. Children’s involvement in the assessment process have to be based on what is developmentally appropriate and also on detailed knowledge of individual children. Assessing children in relation to their learning and development can take many different forms, for example through observations or conversations. Practitioners need to be very careful to ensure,that conclusions drawn from assessments are indeed valid and reliable. By being reliable it indicates the consistency or stability of the assessment and is one of the most important considerations when selecting assessments. Assessments designed for one purpose are not necessarily valid if used for other purposes. In the past, many of the abuses of testing with young children have occurred because of misuse.
Confidentiality is also an key issue of assessments as all children have a right to confidentiality. Assessments are useful tools that most parents are happy for early years practitioners to carry out. They are also potential sorces of sensitive information. This means that the assessments are confidential so they should be stored properly, which usually means in a secure place. It is therefore important that practitioners do not disscuss the assessment with anyone who is directly responsible for the care of the child.
Assessment should be age appropriate in both content and the method of data collection. Assessments of young children should address the full range of early learning and development, including physical well-being and motor development; social and emotional development; approaches toward learning; language development; and cognition and general knowledge. Methods of assessment should recognize that children need familiar contexts to be able to demonstrate their abilities.
Assessment should be linguistically appropriate, recognizing that to some extent all assessments are measures of language. Regardless of whether an assessment is intended to measure early reading skills, knowledge of color names, or learning potential, assessment results are easily confounded by language proficiency, especially for children who come from home backgrounds with limited exposure to English, for whom the assessment would essentially be an assessment of their English proficiency. Each child’s first- and second-language development should be taken into account when determining appropriate assessment methods and in interpreting the meaning of assessment results.
As the assessment is the practitioners own unbiased, objective reflection on the information that they have gathered during the observation it is important who the share the information with the child’s parent, if necessary other professionals.
C2- analyse the role of assessment in informing planning and responding to learning needs
Assessments provide data about each child’s learning, progress, understanding etc.They demonstrate what a child can do in the setting which would show how successful activities are and also if the child is able to do it. Assessments also demonstrate which activities really promote learning and show how a child is feeling at the same time. If a child is happy this may reflect in the activity where as if they were tired and needed a nap they may not want to get involved with the activity and isolate them in e.g a quiet area. If the assessment is effective it will support the child’s learning. For example, During the lesson, practitioners would need to be listening , observing and engaging with the child that they are assessing. By using different strategies of questioning, observing and talking practitioners would be developing methods for quickly checking on the child’s understanding and if they can also develop more assessment activities that would give them a particular insight into how well the children are applying what they have learned. Effective assessments would provide positive outcomes for the child as it would enable the curriculum to be adapted for their individual needs. This would then contribute to professional development which would affect future planning for the child.
When following the assessment the individual learning plan ‘next steps’ are decided . This would be when considering how questions could be further developed in lessons. By looking at the next steps if needed the short term plan is amended and medium and long term plans may be adjusted. If practitioners decided that the child’s next steps needed to be on a higher level their individual activities may be adjusted, tasks that have been set may need to be modified.
Assessment are important for planning and providing learning opportunities as they provide opportunities for learning, teachers are able to assess to what degree learning has actually occurred, before moving the children on to the next stage in their understanding to find out about the children as individuals. Assesments also show how to find out how the children learn by monitoring and providing evidence of the progress the child makes in their learning. Asessments enable constructive guidance about how the child can improve this informs future planning and enable focused communication with others, including the children and themselves.
E6 and E8
Include two example of information from agencies outside the setting which may contribute to the assessments of learning needs.
An example of an agency outside the setting that may contribute to the assessments is the SENCO. The SENCO is an important part of assessments as they would analyse the assessments and decide whether the child has SEN. The SENCO would then co-ordinate additional support for the child with SEN and liaise with their parents, teachers and other professionals who are involved with them. After looking at the assessment the SENCO may do a statutory assessment. This is to build up a complete picture of the child's special educational needs so that the SENCO can decide on how those needs would be met.An educational psychologist is also an important part of the agency as they would also provide specific advice or a report about the child's special educational needs. The advice may be based on the senco’s earlier work with the child.
The SENCO will do their best to ensure that all the staff that are informed and updated about children on the SEN register and that all have an understanding of how best to help the child. A SENCO will help individual staff draw up IEPs if appropriate ensure they are regularly reviewed, and keep everyone informed and involved. The SENCO will also work closely with support staff and outside agencies, therapists and other professionals to ensure a child's needs are met. As the special educational needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) Is responsible for the day to day operation of the school’s SEN policy, they may ask other agencies such as educational psychologist who may answer requests for advice from teachers. The SENCO also has the co-ordination of provision, including liaison with all teachers involved in maintaining the SEN register for all pupils with special needs.
The Educational Psychologist may also consult with staff, parents/carers, observe the child and undertake direct assessment with the child. Using their knowledge of child development and learning, the Educational Psychologists would help identify educational needs, give advice to teachers, other agencies and parents/carers, and contribute to planning the support of a pupil's learning.
An Educational Psychologist would contributes to the assessment process in response to the concerns and issues identified by those who are already involved with a child. The assessment process would informs future teaching and support measures which promote a child's progress and general well being. Examples of when an educational psychologist might become involved include when a nursery child requires extra planning in the transition to primary school etc.