External Reserach – Childcare Level 3

‘’It is important to plan to meet the care and learning needs of all children. ’’ External research CACHE LEVEL 3 DIPLOMA IN CHILDCARE AND EDUCATION Introduction Criteria 1 – Criteria 2 – The first stage of the learning cycle is planning and this is where you plan for the children activities that will be carried out throughout the time at placement and these activities need to be planned for the needs of all children.When practitioners are planning the activity they need to consider the resources, if the activity is age stage appropriate, any protective clothing that may be need during the activity, health and safety and how all the children will be included together, not discriminating any child because of their age, gender, abilities or disability. The second stage is where the planned activity takes places and during this the children will carry out the activity to help them, learn and develop in all aspects of development; social, emotiona l, physical, and intellectual and language development.It also allows practitioners to observe the children during play activities. When practitioners observe, they look for the child’s development and abilities. The third and last stage of the cycle is to review and this is when the practitioner looks back and reflects on the activity (reflect on it) to see where they can improve. The planning cycle is used to meets care needs of children, learning needs of children, help them develop and help them to develop and learn different stages of development.I have seen this happen at placement where the practitioners were planning an activity along the lines of previously noticing a group of boys enjoy playing with the cars and after noticing this, they decided to carry out a work sheet using cars to teach them how to count. When planning this activity, they considered the abilities of the children, the health and safety as well as resources needed.During this activity the practiti oners were observing to see how the children were coping, child’s development stages and what the children were learning during the activity. Once the activity has taken place the practitioners reviewed it by using a reflective cycle. A long term goal is something you want to achieve over a long period of time normal one year or five years. In a school a long term plan is used to cover all aspects of the National Curriculum whereas in a Nursery a long term plan would cover all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, 2012).The practitioners would plan for whole year of children’s time at the setting and it meets the care needs of children by planning for their holidays. It cares for the learning needs of children because it plans to provide the best use of resources and equipment available and the environment in which the children will learn in. This can be a disadvantage because the planning doesn’t allow for immediate changes on a day to day or terml y basis.A long term plan would be covering a curriculum plan because it sets goals, develops strategies and outlines tasks and schedules within the setting. It meets the care needs of children by allowing the practitioners to provide supporting activities for the individual needs of the children and meets the hearing needs by having opportunities that challenge the children, varied types of activities such as adult- led, child-led and free play by learning indoors and outdoors.Practitioners have a meeting ever term and plan for activities and task for the whole school term of the child to help support and develop their care and learning needs in the best possible way to allow each individual child to achieve the next stage. A medium term goal is something that you build upon from a short team goal. Practitioners would plan termly/monthly by building upon the short term plans. It meets the learning needs of children by looking at the themes. Medium term planning in my placement consi ders a central theme spread across a number of weeks:A short term goal is achieving something in the near future for example: within a week. Practitioners would do daily plans and observe the children in order to be able to make changes in the plan to meet individual unique child’s needs. It meets the learning needs of children because it can be immediately changed on a daily basis or weekly basis according to the child’s individual learning needs, abilities and disabilities as well as their likes and dislike to help them move forward in their development and develop their skills.In my current placement practitioners saw a group of boys enjoying playing with the cars. Later on that same day the practitioners got an idea to plan activities around that theme for the following week to help the 2 to 5 years olds learn to count up to 20 which helps the practitioners to encourage and interest the children’s learning by using things that they like to help meet their ne eds in order for them to develop. Routines are tasks, chores, or duties done as regularly as possible or at specified time of the day e. g. typical or every day. It can also be activities happing during the same time period in the day, such as lunch, reading, or playground time. In a childcare setting, a routine maybe having meal times three times a day or having rest time after lunch. They are used for teaching them to be prepared for adult life and helping them to understand their duties. It is important that adults stimulate children’s minds, social skills, emotional and bodies with routines for them to be able to learn and remember these different routines for the future.Routines meet care needs of children because they make children feel safe and build’s the child’s confidence. Routines meet children’s learning needs because the children will learn everyday skill and also allow children to know what is expected of them. I have experienced many differ ent routines throughout my work placements; I have recently seen a routine for the whole day which is in my appendix 2. Criteria 3 – Criteria 4 – Effective planning is something that works well. It also meets the children’s individual needs and helps identify a path of achievement.There are eight feature to effective planning; support for practitioners, effective planning, sharing best practice, knowing the child, encourage reflection, helps with translation and makes it requirement and enjoyable. Effective planning involves around the child. Curriculum plans can be done and allows for practitioners to meet the children’s learning and care needs over a long period of time. This does not always work because each child is individual and they develop skills and abilities at their own time.To make this work effectively practitioners could use a SMART target to plan over the week for each individual child according to their likes, dislikes and what they can an d can’t do. Practitioners could combine both the curriculum plan and Smart target by using the planning cycle, long term and short term plans to make it effective because this allows for all children to learn and develop at their own time and achieve their next stage up. Within my setting practitioners plan effectively by using the SMART target to plan for the week ahead and combine this with using the curriculum plan to do and review over the next month for every child.Once they have observed the activity and child, they then plan activity according to their observation. A combination of planning tools are used in settings to give practitioners good outcomes, meet children’s needs and learning needs and don’t allow practitioners to plan, do and review. I have noticed in my previous setting that practitioners use one type of plan which is the short term plan because they plan weekly for their activities whereas in my current placement practitioners use a range o f plans such as a weekly plan along side an activity plan and a medium plan.If effective planning wasn’t used practitioners would be having bad management in organising activities, practitioners will not get the outcome they are looking for easily, children needs will not be meet to the best interest and they may not be able develop their skills and development well enough because they don’t have the assess to the appropriate activities and resources (age stage). Criteria 5 – Having an appropriate environment in place to support care and learning needs is important because practitioners should make sure that the environment is safe and secure for the children as well as welcoming and warm.It also needs to be stimulating for the children to be able to explore and investigate in. This is stated by Early Years foundation stage (EYFS, 2012) who states that it is important to plan and provide an appropriate environment both indoors and outdoors throughout the day. Th e Reggio Emilio approach focuses on both the outdoor and indoor environment as equally important because they both allow children to explore and discover, free play and creative thinking. Reggio believed that the indoor and outdoor nvironment stimulates children’s learning, children develop socially and they can express themselves in any way they want. Reggio pre-schools believes in having discovery, stimulating learning environments (both indoor and outdoor) for children to be able to reflect on their own learning and record the children’s learning progress (Tassoni, 2007) This approach can benefit children as it allows them to work more closely with the adult to help stimulate their skills, abilities and development within their environment.Children’s play is carried out in a learning environment which is characterised by both indoor and outdoor learning to help children move on in their development stage and it needs to be safe for children to play and learn in where they are protected and supervised at all times by an adult. It is vital to have the appropriate equipment at the child’s level in both the outdoor and indoor environment to help support the learning they need as well as meet each child’s individual needs.Both theorists also support the learning needs of children by allowing them to physical, socially, emotionally, intellectually, cognitive and language develop. ‘’ A good early childhood environment meets the child's basic needs and supports and encourages children to engage in activities that implement the programme's curriculum. ’’ (Exteral research/creating-indoor-environments-for-young-children. htm 1997-2012) Criteria 6 –Care needs are supporting the children’s personal care needs such as feeding, sleeping and hygiene. It helps children to become independent and teaches them life skills. The theorist which supports this is Maslow (1943) and his hierarchy of need. It concerns the responsibility of adults to care and provide a safe environment that encourages and enables the adults to support and meet all the needs of an individual child.These needs include; physical, emotional, social, and intellectual and are shown in the model and diagram of the pyramid five stages. The framework that supports care needs is the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (2012) and they influences day to day practice by making sure each practitioner follows the correct curriculum framework within their practice and care for the children. ‘’There is also a range of supporting guidance on implementing the EYFS requirements which should be used alongside the Statutory Framework.In particular: Development Matters – which provides guidance on observing, assessing and planning for each child's individual learning and development, a know how guide for progress check at age two – which gives case studies and templates to support you with the requir ement to provide parents with a written summary of their child's learning and development between their second and third birthday, EYFS for parents – which you should personalise to your setting to help you meet the requirement of informing parents how the EYFS is delivered. ’’ (czone. eastsussex. gov. uk 2012) Criteria 7 –Jean Piaget’s (1948) theory of play is play-based curriculums were all children are actively involved in their learning. He said that children go through four stages of development; Piaget (1948) theory of play is thought that ‘’learning is an active process in which children draw conclusions though exploration. He called these conclusions schemas. ’’ (Tassoni. P et al 2007 Pg 284). Piaget (1948) is a key influence on children learning (Tassoni, 2007). His theory supports and extends children’s learning needs because he believed that children will learn when they are ready to learn.Vygotskyâ€⠄¢s (1978) theory is based on zone of proximal learning. His theory supports children’s learning needs because he believed that children will learn cooperative activities set up for them where the less able children can learn and get help from the more advanced children. Vygotsky (1978) believed that if a child is at the zone of proximal for an activity and getting help from the adult, will allow the child to boost their achievement of the activity (simplypsychology. org 2010-2012). Criteria 8– Piaget (1984) theory of play has 4 types of play; physical play mastery play, symbolic play and constructive play.He thinks that play is assimilating and children make their own environment through the four different type of play. Piaget (1948) believed that children adapt and develop on their own experience. It is recognised in placement by practitioners because it gives them a guideline on the teaching they should be providing children with and enhance the children to develop their learning and skills. Practitioners could do this by respecting the children’s ideas, suggestions and opinions when they carry out an activity or task.Planning is early years settings should be used because it helps practitioners to get to know the child better by observing them in order to meet each individual child’s needs and plan accordingly to their stage of development and abilities to future help them develop their skills, abilities and development. They should plan for this by using weekly plans because each child is unique and they develop at their own rate which will allow them to make daily/weekly changes according to what they observe and see the children do and learn.Bibliography: Books: Tassoni. Penny, Kate. Beith, Kath. Bulum and Harriet. Eldridge (2007) CACHE level 3 Child Care and Education 4th edition, London: Heinemann Websites: East Sussex County Council (2012) – Early Years Foundation Stage [online] available at: https://czone. eastsuss ex. gov. uk/supportingchildren/childcare/support/eyfs/Pages/main. aspx Assessed on: 6th November 2012