Unit 9 1. 1 As a nursery nurse you need to contribute to a programme of age-appropriate activities designed to stimulate the children you are working with: • Keep an accurate record of achievement file on your key children • Be a pro-active team member, offering appropriate support to your colleagues • Liaise with and support parents and other family members • Attend ALL out of working hours activities, e. g. training, monthly staff meetings, parents’ evenings, summer fayre, Christmas party, etc. • Be flexible within working practices of the Nursery.
Be prepared to help where needed, including domestic jobs within the Nursery, e. g. preparation of snack meals, cleaning equipment etc. • Work with the Manager and her team to ensure that the Nursery’s philosophy is reflected • Record accidents in the accident book. Make sure that parents read and sign the report. • Look at the Nursery as a ‘whole’, where your help is most needed and how you can most effectively meet the needs of the children in your care • Make sure that every child is collected by someone known to the Nursery • Respect the confidentiality of information received Develop your role within the team, especially your role as a key worker • Specified Child Care Tasks: a. Prepare and complete activities that match the child’s stage of development b. Make sure that mealtimes are a time of pleasant social sharing c. Wash and change children as required d. Provide comfort and warmth to an unhappy or sick child • Help to make sure that the environment meets the needs of Nursery children, reflecting their cultures and religious backgrounds, and stages of development • Be aware of the high profile of the Nursery and to uphold its standards at all times. . 2 In my role I am expected to support the staff, to be reliable and build a good relationship with the children, encouraging them to the best of their ability in their learning, to assist their growth in knowledge and assist in enhancing their development, so they can grow holistically. To be aware of any weak areas that I come across whilst working with the children, for example a child that may need extra support within their numeracy, literacy or phonics time. I am also expected to deal, to the best of my ability, with challenging aggressive, rude or traumatised children.
Whilst I may need to do this at times I am also aware that the class teacher is there for support. I have had to deal with bad language used by a pupil when dealing with the child I explained that the words used where not words that should be used. I found out why the pupil had said those words and asked what words we could use instead. As well as working with my own class teacher I can be asked at times to go and support another teacher in another class. I am expected to adapt very quickly to the other class and to the lesson there having.
My role also means that I will support the children so they are confident in their journey though the school. It is important that I conduct myself in the correct manner within the school as children will often mirror others actions. I remain professional at all times and act appropriately. 2. 1 As part of our job role it is important to carry out reflective practice especially because we work with children/young people and our effectiveness will have an impact on them and their learning.
Reflective practice means thinking about and evaluating what you do and discussing any changes which could be made. This means focusing on how we interact with colleagues, service users and the environment. It means thinking about how we could have done something differently, what we did well, what we could have done better. How we can improve what you have done. It also means reflecting our own values, beliefs and experiences which shape our thoughts and ideas.
This will allow us to obtain a clearer picture of your own behaviour and a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses- so that we can learn from our own mistakes and take appropriate future actions. Improving the quality of our performance: - Allows us an objective look at our practice in order to improve - Helps us to recognise what we do well so that we can apply these skills in other situations - Improves professional judgment - Helps us to learn from successes and mistakes to enhance development -
Helps us to plan for future situations and therefore respond more positively to change - Enables us to apply the skill of reflection to the personal development cycle Reflective practice allows us to support the children better and better- if we have concerns about how the session went we can look back and work out what more we could have done. We may have used one resource and found it useful and then choose it again with another child. 2. 3 Everyone has different values, beliefs and preferences.
What you believe in, what you see as important and what you see as acceptable or desirable is an essential part of who you are. The way in which you respond to people is linked to what you believe in, what you consider important and what interests you. You may find you react positively to people who share your values and less warmly to people who have different priorities. When you develop friendships, it is natural to spend time with people who share your interests and values. However, the professional relationships you develop with people you support are another matter.
As a professional, you are required to provide the same quality of support for all, not just for those who share your views and beliefs. This may seem obvious, but knowing what you need to do and achieving it successfully is not the same thing. 3. 1 It is a nursery nurse’s duty to provide a safe, warm and caring environment where children feel welcomed and loved and are able to learn and develop at their own pace, with guidance and supervision as appropriate, in order that parent may have peace of mind to go to work knowing that their child’s well-being is paramount.
The duties and responsibilities are: • To listen to parents as experts on their own children, to respect families traditions and childcare practices and to follow parents’ wishes as closely as possible within the context of caring for children from several different families. • To plan and provide activities and resources appropriate to each child’s age, stage of development and individual needs and interests with due regard the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). • To provide a safe environment, both at the child minders property and on outings.
To teach children safe practices and to hold a current first aid certificate. • To maintain discipline and encourage positive behaviour. • To be aware of the signs and symptoms which indicate the possibility of abuse and to be aware of the current procedure for reporting concerns. • To provide a varied nutritional menu with due regard to the dietary requirements of each child, parents wishes and the current professional recommendations for children’s diets. • To provide a healthy environment and to encourage children to make healthy choices. To liaise with and, where necessary, to seek advice from professionals, with due regard to confidentiality, including preschool leaders, school teachers, health visitor. • To adhere to requirements set out by relevant authorities such as Ofsted, insurance providers, inland revenue. • To comply with relevant legislation such as that covering health and safety, food hygiene, fire or planning requirements and to keep appropriate records with due regard to confidentiality. • To meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
A child minder should also love and nurture every child so they grow confident and strong and develop into healthy and caring young people and adults. 4. 1 While at work it helps me when I have an appraisal meeting with the manager, this is because I can pick out the things I think I do best and the things I don’t do as good as I should be doing. This is also useful as the manager will have some points to speak to me about things so then I can use these to help me become a professional nursery practitioner. It’s also useful when I get supervised through new things e. when I first got key children I got so much help and supervision through this that it made me become stronger at work. 5. 1 The reasons why it is important to evaluate learning activities are: • To see what is working and what needs removing or changing • To assess how the activities are being delivered and how they could be improved • To see how the activities are being received by the participants Evaluation is important as it helps out when planning and helps you to think about the learning that has taken place.
Spending time going through the learning activities and seeing how students have responded to a certain task or question, can really help re-shape it for future classes. It is also important to look back at the learning objects so you can measure what the children have learned. If you do not think carefully about learning objectives at the planning stage, it will not always be possible to evaluate whether pupils have achieved them. Learning objectives need to be clear for this to be possible. • Learners must understand what the outcomes mean. • They must be achievable. • We must be able to assess pupils against them.
Evaluating helps you to see if something is succeeding or may need changing. If students whizzed through the activity and then looked rather bored then it would be obvious that the task was a bit too easy and not really suitable or beneficial for that group. Therefore you would need to try and make it more engaging and stimulating, perhaps by making it more difficult or time-consuming so the students really have to work to complete it. If the activities are taking longer than expected and you can see that the students are really struggling, things again would need to be addressed.
