The Early Years Foundation Stage framework sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life. The guidance materials are used to ensure settings provide: quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind; • a secure foundation through learning and development opportunities which are planned around the needs and interests of each individual child and are assessed and reviewed regularly; • partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers; • equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported. The EYFS framework specifies requirements for learning and development and for safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. . 2 Here is a list of different approaches: Reggio Emilia Montessori Common core Reggio Emilia The Reggio Approach gets it name from its place of origin, Reggio Emilia, a city located in Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy. After the Second World War, Loris Malaguzzi, a young teacher and the founder of this unique system, joined teams with the parents of this region to provide child care for young children. Over the last 50 years, this education system has developed into a unique program that has caught the attention of early childhood educators worldwide.
Of special interest is the emphasis on childrens symbolic languages in the context of a project-oriented curriculum. The Reggio Emilia approach is made possible through a carefully articulated and collaborated approach to the care and education of young children. Here are the key points of the Reggio Emilia: Community support and parental involvement Administrative policies and organisational features Teachers as learners The role of the environment Long-term projects as vehicles for learning The hundred languages of children Community support and parental involvement
Traditions of community support for families with young children comes from Italy’s cultural view of children as the collective responsibilities of the state. The parents role is the same as the community’s, at both school wide and the classroom level. Parents have to take part in discussions about school policy, child development concerns and curriculum planning and evaluation. Because most parents are employed meetings are held in the evenings so that all who want to take part can do so. Administrative policies and organisational features
A head administrator reports directly to the town council, who works with a group of curriculum team leaders, each of them coordinates the efforts of teachers from 5 or 6 centres. Each of these centres is staffed by two teacher per classroom, in which there is 12 children in infant classes, 18 in toddlers classes and 24 in pre-primary classes, one teacher trained in arts who works with classroom teachers in curriculum development and documentation and several auxiliary staff. There is no principle, and there is not a hierarchical relationship between teachers.
This staffing plan along side with the policy of keeping the same group o children and teachers together for the 3 year period, facilitates the sense of community that characterises relationships between children and adults. Teachers as learners The teacher is considered a co-learner and collaborator with the child and not just an instructor. Teachers are encouraged to facilitate the child's learning by planning activities and lessons based on the child's interests, asking questions to further understanding, and actively engaging in the activities alongside the child, instead of sitting back and observing the child learning.
Teachers' long-term commitment to enhancing their understanding of children is at the root of the Reggio Emilia approach. Their resistance to the American use of the term model to describe their program reflects the continuing evolution of their ideas and practices. They compensate for the meager preservice training of Italian early childhood teachers by providing extensive staff development opportunities, with goals determined by the teachers themselves. Teacher autonomy is evident in the absence of teacher manuals, curriculum guides, or achievement tests.
The lack of externally imposed mandates is joined by the imperative that teachers become skilled observers of children in order to inform their curriculum planning and implementation. When working on projects with the child, the teacher can also expand the child's learning by collecting data such as photographs, notes, videos, and conversations that can be reviewed at a later time. The role of the environment The organization of the physical environment is crucial to Reggio Emilia's early childhood program, and is often referred to as the child's "third teacher".
Major aims in the planning of new spaces and the remodeling of old ones include the integration of each classroom with the rest of the school, and the school with the surrounding community. The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas. The pre-schools tend to be filled with indoor plants and vines, and awash with natural light.
Classrooms open to a central piazza, kitchens are open to view and access to the surrounding community is assured through wall sized windows, courtyards, and doors to the outside in each classroom. Long-term projects as vehicles for learning The curriculum is characterized by many features advocated by contemporary research on young children, including real-life problem-solving among peers, with numerous opportunities for creative thinking and exploration. Teachers often work on projects with small groups of children, while the rest of the class engages in a wide variety of self-selected activities typical of preschool classrooms.
The projects that teachers and children engage in are different in a number of ways from those that characterize American teachers' conceptions of unit or thematic studies. The topic of investigation may derive directly from teacher observations of children's spontaneous play and exploration. Project topics are also selected on the basis of an academic curiosity or social concern on the part of teachers or parents, or serendipitous events that direct the attention of the children and teachers. Reggio teachers place a high value on their ability to improvise and respond to children's predisposition to enjoy the unexpected.
Regardless of their origins, successful projects are those that generate a sufficient amount of interest and uncertainty to provoke children's creative thinking and problem-solving and are open to different avenues of exploration. Because curriculum decisions are based on developmental and sociocultural concerns, small groups of children of varying abilities and interests, including those with special needs, work together on projects. Projects begin with teachers observing and questioning children about the topic of interest.
Based on children's responses, teachers introduce materials, questions, and opportunities that provoke children to further explore the topic. While some of these teacher provocations are anticipated, projects often move in unanticipated directions as a result of problems children identify. Therefore, curriculum planning and implementation revolve around open-ended and often long-term projects that are based on the reciprocal nature of teacher-directed and child-initiated activity. All of the topics of interest are given by the children.
Within the project approach, children are given opportunities to make connections between prior and new knowledge while engaging in authentic tasks. The hundred languages of children As children proceed in an investigation, generating and testing their hypotheses, they are encouraged to depict their understanding through one of many symbolic languages, including drawing, sculpture, dramatic play, and writing. They work together toward the resolution of problems that arise. Teachers facilitate and then observe debates regarding the extent to which a child's drawing or other form of representation lives up to the expressed intent.
Revision of drawings and of ideas is encouraged, and teachers allow children to repeat activities and modify each other's work in the collective aim of better understanding the topic. Teachers foster children's involvement in the processes of exploration and evaluation, acknowledging the importance of their evolving products as vehicles for exchange. (Source: www. reggiokids. com and Children and Young Peoples Workforce, Meggitt, Kamen, Bruce, Grenier) Maria Montessori She began her work as a doctor in one of the poorest areas in Rome, in the beginning of the 1900s.
She worked with children with learning difficulties. She spend hours observing children. This is one of the strengths of her work. Her conclusion, which is now supported by modern research that children pass through sensitive periods of development when they are particularly receptive to particular areas of learning. She saw children as active learners, just like Piaget. Here is a summary of Montessori’s ideas: She put together a structured teaching programme, which she based on her observations of children with learning difficulties. The work of an educator called Seguin, was also used by Maria Montessori.
He had given manual dexterity exercises to children with physical disabilities. He done this as he believed that if they could learn to use their hands, they would then be able to get a job later on in life She designed a set of didactic materials, as she called them, which encouraged children to use their hands. She stressed the importance that children should work alone. She thought that this would help them become independent learners. For Montessori the highest point of a child’s learning is what she like to call the polarisation of the attention.
Montessori didn’t see the point in play, didn’t encourage children’s own ideas, until they had worked through all her graded learning sequence. Montessori has had more impact and influence on private schools than on the maintained sector of education. Common Core The Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the children's workforce - often referred to as the Common Core - sets out the basic skills and knowledge needed by people whose work (paid or voluntary) brings them into regular contact with children, young people and families. It supports integrated working by contributing to the use of a common language.
The skills and knowledge included in the Common Core have been divided into six key areas: Effective communication and encouragement with children, young people and families. Children and young people development. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child. Supporting transitions Multi-agency working Sharing information It aims to promote quality, respect diversity and challenge stereotypes, helping to improve the life chances of all children and young people. Also providing more effective and integrated services. At the same time it cknowledges the rights of children and young people, and the role of parents, carers and families. (Source: http://webarchive. nationalarchives. gov. uk and Children and Young Peoples Workforce, Meggitt, Kamen, Bruce, Grenier) 1. 3 Early years frameworks emphasise a personal and individual approach to learning and development because valuing children’s individuality, ideas and feelings is an important aspect in developing. It is necessary to meet the universal needs of all children, these are physical and biological needs such as food, drink, and shelter which are essential to survival.
There is also psychological needs such as love, affection, secure and stable relationships, friendships intellectual stimulation, and independence. These are essential to maintain the individuals quality of life. A child’s needs vary from child to child as each child is an individual and not any two are the same. It can be difficult to meet the needs of children in child care settings when they are grouped together according to age. Some children will have developmental needs which are in line with the expected “norm” for their chronological age, whereas others will have needs which are characteristic of much older or younger children.
Once recognised, the child’s needs can then be met. When doing this it is important to consider each childs age, physical maturity, intellectual abilities, emotional development, social skills, past experiences and relationships. 3. 2 Here is a list of barriers to participation for parents and carers: Concerns about welfare, development and learning of a child Parents becoming angry or upset Parents and carers with other priorities Parents and carers having prejudicial attitudes Differences in rules and expectations
This can be overcome by talking to the parent or carer in a way that shows concern for the child, and not criticising the parent or carer. The conversation can also be held in a private and confidential space, with a clear focus on the childs best interests. This can be overcome by staying calm and talking calmly offering some where private to talk. 3. 3 As carers are individuals there is no one way to have a partnership with parents/carers, there needs to be a whole range of ways for parents to access partnerships in order for them to find the one that is most suitable for them.
These may include diaries to communicate between home and the setting, meetings within in the setting, workshops run by the setting, open days and parents evenings. 3. 4. Multi agency working helps the different services and professionals to join together to prevent problems occurring in the first place. This means that practitioners can work with parents and carers to help them access and organise the different services and provisions that may be helpful to them.
