Multi-agency also provides better quality services, children, young people family needs and much more.A main point of the mulit-proffesional approach is the CAF Common Assesment Framework, which allows different proffessionals and agencies to assess a childs needs using form so that no information is lost or repeated. The reason the CAF framework is a good thing in a multi professional approach is that allows holistic care of the child, for example the child’s development would improve and the six early learning areas, physical, social & emotional, language, maths, knowledge & understanding & creativity would be putting in to place. Through CAF framework, the holistic development of the child is encouraged. This includes their emotional development, the forming and development of social relationships, intellectual and creative stimulation, the opportunity to explore both their culture and creativity and to physically progress. It would also be more accessable for parents as they would be involved with the nursery and they would be able to disscuss with a practitioner if they wanted to know something. Also by working with other professionals it would improve your job satisfaction and professional development, as you would be working with other professionals who would be able to give you a variety of different information for the future.
E4
The setting benefits when a reflective practice is developed.A reflective practice allows you to look at what you did and how you would make it better. For example, if you wanted to reflect about if you have just had a new intake, do the children in your group, know that you are genuinely pleased to see them all each day? ,Are there some children who you can’t build positive relationships with? What could you do to ensure that you get to know them better? Etc, by doing this you would be thinking about what you could do to make it happen.You and the staff, have a chance to reflect on your teaching practice, skills and knowledge, by seeing what worked and what could be better. It also allows you to identify areas in which you need help for example, professional development such as behaviour management skills. It's a chance to stop and think if you want to develop your setting, and you are reflecting on the setting, on how you could make it better, you could think about the past how you think e.g. how open days went, or parent days, you would think about "Yeah. that went really well and I liked what I did" or alternatively," that could have been better. What will I do next time??". This would help with the next time you try to do an open day etc, as you would know were you went wrong and how you would improve it. By doing this, it would lead to an “improved practice, which would improve a better team, improved repitation” – Ofsted 2006.
When going out to courses for professional training , the staff would develop their practice, as you are providing more information in the setting for them to act out on. This would benefit and reflect on the practice as you would be providing information which would be improving the staff learning. The children would also benefit as they would have a wider range of resorses and use of equiptment, as the staff of the practice would be acting out on it, for example rhyming activities for children in nursery- using rhyming cards and matching them to words. By continuing to reflect and evaluate the practice the setting would be improving the childrens needs, because you would know if their individual needs are met as you would be reflecting on their personal learning during planning and if next steps are identified this would be easier to plan out for them.
Parents would also be confident with the setting if they knew that they are focusing and reflecting on their childs learning. If the parent is confident so would the child. “It is important to build relationships with parents alongside children,in terms with building relationships with children, they look at their parents reactions in order to decide whether they should be fearful. This is sometimes refered to social refrencing, looking at parents and you”. Tassoni,pg 118, 2006.
E6
As practitioners it's important to value children's interests and experiences as it show the children we are listening to them, it helps them to become their own individual person, to concentrate more, have higher self-esteem and it also helps to have a better understanding of the child in their personality and way of life. "You can value children by listening properly to them and acknowledging their efforts, ideas and interests." (Tassoni, 2007, pg 6) When working with children it's important to value their interests and experiences, it is also a requirement of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. To find out children's different interests in the setting, you could observe the child’s inrests through observations. By observing you would be able to see what the child enjoys and what activities interest them. "By observing children you can see what they already enjoy doing and which activities help them to concentrate." (Tassoni, 2007, pg 235) From knowing children's interests it can help plan activities more effectively that children will participate in and enjoy. Planning an activity which interests children means they are more likely to concentrate and there for learn more than if they didn't enjoy the activity. As a practitioner you would respect and value children as unique, whole individuals who have a right to participate and be consulted about what they want to do, for example if they want to play outside or inside, and also how they like things done e.g. if it is snack time and they are having toast and they don’t like crusts, you would respect their decision. By doing this you would be respecting their individuall choice. You would also value and respect children by allowing children to express their choices, for example if you are having a group discussion, you would give every child to give their veiws and opinions on the topic you are discussing. Overall every child is of equal importance. Some children may have problem e.g. disabilities, bad behavior, special needs, but they should be given equal opportunities and as much attention as they need to succeed. It would not be fair to concentrate only on the brighter children, or only on the less able , as each individual child would need cared for.
E7/B1/A1
E7. The recent initiative that I have chosen is “free nursery education for 3 and 4 year olds” The website Direct Gov says “ Free early learning gives children the best start in life, through learning and playing with other children in a safe and structured environment, they’ll have a head start when they begin school”.
B1.By allowing children to have early education they would learn lots of new skills in a group setting, they would be building on skills they learn at home and from their families. For example number skills. They would also develop on their social skills by playing with other children they haven’t met. The child would learn through play and experience new activities e.g. wake and shake. Early education is a great start for child as the setting would also be following the Early Years Foundation Stage. This initative also includes children who have special needs, the setting has to follow the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice. The setting have an Special Education Needs coordinator (SENCO) who is trained with supporting children with special educational needs. It is up to the setting to provide the staff as they have a grant from the government to cover the cost of the childcare.
The disadvantage about the free nursery education is that some parents are getting their ap plication denied unless they pay top-up fees for extra hours and also some nurseries , PAC chairwoman Margaret Hodge said: "High-quality early years education can have lasting benefits for children and results at age five have improved. We are concerned that some providers may be excluding families which do not pay for additional hours”. This affects parents as they would think that they would be getting the free entitlement but settings would be charging extra. She added: "It is unacceptable for any parent to be charged for what should be a free entitlement. It is also completely unacceptable that some parents cannot access the free education unless they agree to pay 'top-up' fees for more hours”. The government is now tracking down the nurseries as everyone is eligible to free places. E7.Free places are also only available during term-time, and only for 15 hours a week. In addition, many childcare providers sometimes feel that government funding for the free places is insufficient, placing restrictions on their earnings potential and their ability to B1.provide the best care. This is because now many nurseries face paying for free places as the funding is unsuffient. So nurseries are not able to buy any equiptment for the nursery because there is less funding and some nurseries are paying for the free places, the staff cannot pay practitioners, afford to hire anyone etc.
I believe even with the disadvantages, the free nursery education does support work in the early years as they give children an early education which supports them in later life. It also supports parents who don’t have a lot of money, it allows their child to have an education, no matter what their financial status is. The free nursery education are also provided through a partnership between the government, local education, authorities and the private and voluntary sectors. But the settings do not just provide education they bring together learning with childcare services. They are designed to develop new services for children, parents, teachers and childcare workers. In other words, this means that the nurseries educate young children, as well as helping them and their families in other ways, such as by providing parenting skills courses, family literacy classes and health advice. A spokeswoman for the Department for Education speaking from the:” bbc news(2010)” said: "We are pleased that Unicef's conclusions affirm the investment this government is making to improve education and early intervention as fundamental to tackle child poverty. Fifteen hours of nursery education for three and four-year-olds and disadvantaged two-year-olds, trials of parenting classes and the pupil premium for disadvantaged pupils were all aimed at tackling child poverty, the spokeswoman said. So overall I believe the free nursery education does support work in the early years.
E7. A recent study that I have chosen that also supports a practitioners professional practice is the Effective provision of pre-school matters. The EPPE project study, investigates the effects of pre-school education and care on childrens' development for children aged 3 - 7 years old. It also helps to identify aspects of pre-school provision which have a positive impact on children’s attainment, progress and development, and provide guidance on good practices. A1. The benefits of this project according to Nursery World, are that all children who attend a high-quality pre-school linked with EPPE, followed by a primary school with high-quality teaching have a significant boost in their development. This was shown in the “EPPE project, findings in the early years”, they investigated a group of children who didn’t go to pre school and a group that did, in their findings they found out that children who didn’t go to pre school were more like a toddler and didn’t enjoy communicationg with people, children who did go to pre school were more mature and independent, Overall the report showed that pre-school experience continues to influence children’s development during the earlyprimary school years. Children who attend effective, high quality pre-school centres for alonger duration show better intellectual and social.In other words the chldren who go to pre school have a more likely to be brighter than children who dont go to nursery.Professor Pam Sammons, one of the project's researchers, said, 'The EPPE research confirms the importance of early experiences and the powerful combination of home, pre-school and primary school in improving learning. Having attended pre-school had significant benefits for English, mathematics and pro-social behaviour.If children had attended poor early years settings they generally showed no benefit in terms of improved outcomes. By having a home-learning environment in children's early years, combined with support from family and high parental expectations help disadvantaged children to 'succeed against the odds'.
The EPPE project supports the early years setting as it appears to contribute to better outcomes for children. The study is a sample of young children’s development ,(intellectual and social/behavioural) between the ages of 3 and 7 years. It investigates the effects of the child’s home background and pre-school education. The factors that should be considered when trying to improve the pre-school experiences of young children, are that you should support them, some children have individual special needs etc . According to the British Educational Research the settings that use the eppe project, view cognitive and social development which would achieve the best all round outcome. Nursery workers would need to have good curriculum knowledge as well as knowledge and understanding of child development. In addition, increasing feedback to children during activities will aid a child’s understanding. The most effective settings provide both adult initiated group work and instructive play activities. So the children’s cognitive outcomes, appear to the planning and supporting of the children’s learning. Overall the report from the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) project found that in early years settings is that it supports early year settings as it allows children to do activities using their own initiatives and the benefits are reduced as the child goes through school.
D1
The importance of reflecting on your own performance is that it helps you improve and evaluate your own learning. By evaluating what you have learnt every day, you would be able to learn from mistakes, recognize your different strengths, set goals, change or adapt your setting and use a variety of skills. By evaluating it would improve your learning as it helps identify gaps and areas that can be improved, Also when reflecting on your practice it gives you a bigger chance to work with the other professionals in the setting, as most reflection would take part in team meetings/staff meetings. It is important to reflect on yourself and your setting as it involves you as a practitioner to look at all the different relationships that you have at your setting for example support staff, senco cordinater etc. It would allow you to identify any changes you could make that may make the team more effective, E.g You could revisit a particular incident that happened in the setting and reflect on the way you responded at the time, by exploring the reasons for what you did, were they based on current best practice or could you have responded differently if you had more time. By doing this you would be able to reflect on what happened in the past and by doing this you would be improving your own performance and learning for the future if that incident occurd again. You could also ask other members of staff for their opinion on how you they could change what had happened what is their view and opinions. Working in this reflective way would allow you to take control of your learning and development as you would evaluate the changes in the setting and that will develop your overall role. Being a reflective practitioner means being aware of your limitations and the gaps in your knowledge, as well as your strengths and qualities, so by knowing your weaknesses you could set goals to achive them. You could do this by working with other practitioners in the setting and seeing where you could improve etc by getting their opininon.
Schon (1983, 1996) introduced the concept of a 'reflective practitioner', someone who consciously thinks about what he or she is doing, whilst it is occurring and afterwards. He explored 'reflection-in-action' and Reflection-on-action' and suggested it was the ability to reflect both during and after an action that would make you an effective practitioner as it would improve your learning and your performance in the future.
Gibbs said “Reflective practice is a process which enables you to achieve a better understanding of yourself, your skills, competencies, knowledge and professional practice. Learning comes from many different incidents and experiences that we have in life. We learn much about ourselves, jobs, organizations, and the seting as well as our skills, consciously takeing the time to reflect on your learning”.
Gibbs 1988 – The Reflective Cycle (devon.gov) 2002
C1
The principles and values when working with children are adopted in the child care sector and are designed to provide a basis to work with children in a range of settings and services. They meet the needs and rights of the child and reflect on a developing sector that places the child at the center. The principles and values for underpinning work with children and the protection and promotion of children’s rights are as followsThe main principle that underpins when working with children are , “That the child and young persons welfare is paramount”. This means that the child's health, emotional stability, safety, etc, all come first in whatever issues are being decided, and grown-ups come last. For example, if a child in the setting has an accident and their key worker was going to a meeting, the key worker would have to go meet the child’s needs, by doing this the key worker is making the child’s welfare paramount. As a practitioner working with children you will have to provide the best care for them, reassuring parents that your settting is child centred and that it supports your staff and volunteers through appropriate procedures and guidelines. “The workers also contribute to the children’s care, learning and development and safeguarding this is reflected in every aspect of practice” The staff for example: do this at the end of each day during planning, they would all gather together and reflect on what activities they did and how the children learnt from. Also the practice would develop if there are any place that the staff believe could do with some improvement e.g. the role play room if all the outfits are the same size and there are some children a bit bigger, you could get outfits in a bigger size by doing this you would be reflecting the practice. “Working in partnership with parents and other family members”. By working with parents and having a good partnership you would both be supporting learning and development of the child, you should be able to share information about the child, and you as a practitioner would be able to make decisions and use different approaches. According to the eyfs, ‘Parents are children’s first and most enduring educators. When parents and practitioners work together in early years settings, the results have a positive impact on children’s learning and development.’ Also in nursery world, a partnership advisory teacher Jane Drake said, “by having a trusting and warm relationship between key worker and parents begins with the initial contact meeting, and it is crucial that, from the start, parents understand that staff value their knowledge and understanding of their child”.
The Values for “underpinning work with children are the needs, rights and views of the child”, you would support the child and help them fufill their needs in whatever they need help with. You as a practitioner would learn from this as you would know how to support them in the future. By doing his you would be supporting the child by fuffilling their needs,rights and views. So for example, if the child is struggling with a piece of maths work, you would take their view on it if they need extra help this would also be fulfilling the childs rights as you would be involving them and then you would point out if you believe they need extra support.The second value is “Individuality, difference and diversity are valued and celebrated”. This would be supported in the setting, if you as a practitinor planned a variety of activities which would be associated with the different cultures in the setting. You as a practitioner would learn about the different cultures and their different celebrations and support the children who have different religion by bringing their religion into the setting. For example, you could have a party and each child can come in clothes representing their country and bring food that they eat, by doing this the children would be fascinated by other peoples religions, where they came from etc. They would enjoy seeing the difference between them and oter children. “Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice are actively promoted”. This would make the setting feel more open as everyone who would enter the setting would feel respected and equal whatever their job role is you would be an inviting setting which would help your learning for example if there are other professionals visiting they could give you ideas on how to support it. This value also helps to prevent discrimination against individuals on the basis of difference: for example, age, class, ability, culture, gender, marital status, mental health, race, religion, sensory ability and sexuality. The forth value is “Children’s health and well-being are actively promoted”. The setting provides healthy snacks throughout the day for children to help themselves they would also do a variety of activities e.g. wake and shake, p.e. In the setting you would ensure that the children are safe, well nourished, play and learn actively and create environments which build the social and emotional confidence in children, families and staff. Better Health, Better Care (2007) states: ‘In the early years, you ate supporting good healthy choices and behaviours amongst children and young people, we can sustain good health throughout their lives.’ Practitioners would play an increasing role in sharing the care of young children with their parents. A setting that develops health and wellbeing is a place where children are valued, and as importantly, know that they are valued. Children who are encouraged to enjoy being themselves and to make healthy choices for themselves, stand a better chance of a positive future.
“Children’s personal and physical safety is safeguarded, whilst allowing for risk and challenge as appropriate to the capabilities of the child”. This would create a healthy environment as the child would know they would be able to achieve all their ability and be in a safe environment. By providing a safe environment that allows appropriate risks and challenges i.e., climbing frames. The children would take safe risks but always be supervisied and do risk assessment, they would also follow health and safety rules. The sixth value is “The Self-esteem, resilience and a positive self-image” is recognized as essential to every child’s development. The setting would have to make sure they would observe each individual child to helping with their development. The practitioner would also need to promote the understanding and value of self-worthy within the setting by encouraging interaction and individuality to aid the child or young person to grow emotionally and socially. The seventh value is “Confidentiality and agreements about confidential information are respected as appropriate unless a child’s protection and well-being are at stake” The setting would have to make sure the confidentiality of information is always safe and secure and only shared amongst the staff and no one else unless disclosure is required by law or in the best intrest in the child. As a pratactioner, you're required to maintain private information, such as health records, nutritional restrictions, contact information and, in some cases, developmental progress reports and parent logs. Child Care Aware points out that a confidentiality policy plays an important role in parent/provider communication, providing assurance that private information stays private.
The final value is “best practice requires reflection and a continuous search for improvement”. The practitioner should always keep an open mind always looking to see how you can improve something or develop it. By reflecting on how enthusiastic, positive and optimistic you are and how you demonstrate this in your work from day to day. For example, you would think about how you treat colleagues, how well you listen to them and to what extent you are prepared to help out if needed or you would also consider the way to talk to children and how good you are at listening to what they have to say and following up on their idea etc. By doing this you would be reflecting on your self and be improving your setting.
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assignmenthelp (student)
