69 pages

English

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What does it mean to be three? , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Jennie Lindon

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69 pages

English

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A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

What Does It Mean To Be Three, from child psychologist Jennie Lindon, will give you the tools you need to ensure that your work with children, whether in a school, nursery or home setting, is relevant to their individual stages of development.This books looks at the six areas of learning in the EYFS and focusses on what each area means for three-year olds. Each area of development is backed up with examples of how real children learn, what good practice looks like and working in partnership with parents. A must-have for anyone working with three-year olds.

Sujets

Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	28 mai 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781907241819
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

• Information organised within the six areas of learning used by the Early Years

• Practical implications of research about children and early learning. • Examples of real children and places to illustrate how and what young children learn. • Guidance on being a helpful adult - how to give effective support and avoid

• Food for thought boxes that encourage reﬂection and discussion among early

• Many examples that will help practitioners to share with parents their own children’s step-by-step learning.

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REVISED EDITION Books What does it mean to be three? 3 A practical guide to child development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Jennie Lindon

Contents

Focus on three-year-olds 2-9

Personal, social and emotional development 10-21

Communication, language and literacy 22-33

Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy 34-41

Knowledge and understanding of the world 42-47

Physical development 48-55

Creative development 56-61

What should concern you? 62-63

Further resources 64-67

Acknowledgements 68

Published by Practical Pre-School Books, A Division of MA Education Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, Herne Hill, London, SE24 0PB Tel. 020 7738 5454 Revised edition © MA Education Ltd 2008 First edition © MA Education Ltd 2006 www.practicalpreschoolbooks.com Front cover image © iStockphoto.com/Olga Solovei All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

What does it mean to be three? (Revised edition) ISBN: 978 1 904575 40 5

Focus on three-year-olds

What Does it Mean to be Three?explores the developmental needs and likely skills of three-year-olds. This book is complete in itself but threes develop along their own personal timeline. So the content links closely with the other three titles in this series, especially withWhat does it mean to be two?andWhat does it mean to be four?The content of this book is relevant to any practitioner working with threes anywhere in the UK. The structure of the book, however, follows the framework for England of the Early Years Early Years Foundation Stage: guidance covering from birth to Ive years of age that will be statutory for early years provision from September 2008.

Each book in theWhat does it mean to be…?series recognises that many children from the age group will attend different kinds of early years provision, as well as being part of their own family home. Even children, whose family have chosen childminding, may also increasingly spend part of their week in some kind of group setting. However, the objective is to approach young children as individuals who are two, three, four or Ive years of age and whose uniqueness should not be limited to their role in attending a given type of early years provision. Children’s learning can only be effectively and appropriately supported when adults - practitioners and parents alike - are guided by sound knowledge of child development: what children are like at different ages and what they therefore need in order to thrive.

The layout of each of the four books in this linked series includes:

•

Descriptive developmental information within the main text, organised within the six areas of learning used by the Early Years Early Years Foundation Stage (England). ‘For example’ sections giving instances of real children and real places, with occasional references to useful sources of further examples. ‘Being a helpful adult’ boxes which focus on adult behaviour that is an effective support for children’s learning, as well as approaches that could be less wise or helpful. ‘Food for thought’ headings which highlight points of good practice in ways that can encourage reLection and discussion among practitioners, as well as sharing in partnership with parents.

Where are the threes ‘ofﬁcially’?

Three-year-olds are welcome in any of the different types of early years provision: nursery schools and classes, playgroups and pre-schools, day nurseries, different types of centres for young children and with the childminding service. Families are encouraged to accept some kind of out-of-home early years experience for their three-year-olds, but across the UK attendance is deInitely voluntary. A different national framework operates in each country of the UK:

•

ïn England from September 2008 the three to Ive Foundation Stage early years curriculum, will be replaced by the birth to Ive years framework of the Early Years Foundation Stage. ïn Scotland, the Curriculum Framework for Children 3-5 applies to the experiences of threes. Current developments focus on a Curriculum for Excellence to cover from three to eighteen years of age. ïn the earlier years, the main focus for development is for a continuity of more active learning and play from the early education of three to Ive years olds into the Irst years of primary school.

•

ïn Wales, the main focus of development is on the Foundation Phase for young children from three to seven years, bridging the early years curriculum into the Irst years of primary school. ïn Northern ïreland the Curricular Guidance for Pre-School Education applies to three- and four-year-olds, often mainly threes. Young children start primary school in the September of the school year after their fourth birthday. The main focus for current development is the Early Years Foundation Stage that applies to the Irst two years of primary school, with children aged four or Ive years of age.

Development matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

From September 2008 in England threes are ‘ofIcially’ within a framework that spans the full range of early childhood. All early years practitioners in England need to become familiar with the details of the EYFS but the good practice described is not new. Part of your task, in Inding your way around the EYFS materials, is to recognise just how much is familiar, when your early years provision already has good practice. (See page 64 for information on how to access materials about the EYFS.) The EYFS follows the developmental areas pattern, established with the Foundation Stage, and there are only a few changes within the details of that structure.

There are six areas of learning within the EYFS.

• • • • • •

Personal, social and emotional development Communication, language and literacy Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy Knowledge and understanding of the world Physical development Creative development

This framework is one way of considering the breadth of children’s learning. But of course children do not learn in separate compartments; the whole point is that children’s learning crosses all the boundaries. The aim of identifying areas of learning is to help adults to create a balance, to address all the different, equally important areas of what children gain across the years of early childhood.

When the EYFS is in place, all these records have to connect with the six areas of learning. A rich resource of developmental information and practice advice is provided in the Practice Guidance booklet of the EYFS, in Appendix 2 that runs from pages 22-114. None of this material should be used as a checklist, or have-to-do grids. ït is crucial that early years practitioners and teams hold tight to this key point. ïn each of these very full pages, the same pattern applies.

•

The developmental information in the Irst column, ‘Development matters’, is a reminder of the kinds

•

of changes likely to happen – not an exhaustive list of what happens, and in this exact way. The examples work like the Stepping Stones guidance of the Foundation Stage. The broad and overlapping age spans are deliberate: birth to 11 months, 8-20 months, 16-26 months, 22-36 months, 30-50 months and 40-60+ months. The aim is to refresh about development, supporting practitioners to take time over all the ‘steps’. There should be no headlong rush to the ‘older’ age spans, let alone the Inal early learning goals (EGs). None of the descriptions, apart from the EGs, are required targets or outcomes. So, the only part of all this information that is statutory is the description of the early learning goals. They only become relevant for observation within the last year of the EYFS (just like with the Foundation Stage), which is the reception class located in primary schools. Practitioners working with younger threes will mainly look at the 30-50 months span. ït makes good sense to look at the 22-36 months span, if you work with just the threes or children whose development has been signiIcantly slowed by disability or very limited early experience. There should be no sense of rush, but it makes sense to begin to look at the early parts of the 40-60+ age band with older threes. The EGs, placed at the end of every 40-60+ age band, should not be used to shape the experiences of threes. They are not realistic expectations for younger children and they are not intended to be applied to three-year-olds.

Child-focussed observation and planning

ït will be necessary for practitioners (in England) to adjust their Lexible forward planning and child-focussed documentation to reLect the six areas of the EYFS from September 2008. However, the adjustments are minor for those practitioners who have already been working with the Foundation Stage framework. Practitioners with mixed age groups, of twos and threes, can leave behind the frustrating problems of creating a bridge between the aspects and components structure of Birth to Three Matters and a framework of six developmental areas. Early years practitioners should have a sound basis of child development knowledge. ïf any practitioners feel unsure of realistic expectations, then the Development matters column should be used as a detailed source of information to build that knowledge across early childhood.

Food for thought box

In the English Foundation Stage, the Stepping Stones and examples of children were intended as descriptions to highlight ways in which three, four-and ﬁve- year-olds might be learning and progressing towards the relevant early learning goal. The stepping stones were never intended to be subsidiary goals, nor to work like a developmental checklist or inﬂexible observational tracking system.

However, anecdotal evidence suggests that some settings felt that they should, or were required, to treat the stepping stones in this way. Some teams even became burdened with an attempt to show ‘evidence’ that children had ‘passed’ each stepping stone before they were ‘allowed’ to move on. This misunderstanding created impossible, paper-heavy systems in which children were not observed as individuals and often lost the precious attention of adults who were too busy ﬁlling in pro formas to play and chat.

So it is not entirely surprising that, when the EYFS developmental information emerged in 2007, it was seized by some commentators as a harassing list of ‘targets’, ‘outcomes’, required ‘milestones’ and so on. It is the responsibility of any practitioners, with team leaders, to take the opportunity of the EYFS to return to child-focussed practice and ensure that any written records clearly pay their way in terms of direct beneﬁts for the children.

The situation about any kind of written planning and documentation is the same as has applied all the time for the Foundation Stage, namely that there are no statutory written formats for observation and planning. The early years inspection body for England, Ofsted, does not require any speciIc approach to the need to be observant and to have a planful approach. The key messages from the EYFS materials are that any formats used by practitioners need to show:

•

The progress of individual children over time, at their own pace and set against realistic expectations for their age, ability and experiences. That planning is responsive to the needs and interests of individual children: through continuous provision (the learning environment) and Lexible use of planned activities. How observations of children make a difference to what is offered to individuals and to sensible short-term changes to planning opportunities for a group of children. There is plenty of scope for Ine-tuning through short-term planning – that ‘what next?’ or ‘next steps’ is a real part of the process.

Over pages 22-114 of the EYFS Practice Guidance each page has other information and suggestions:

•

‘ook, listen and note’ (second column in from the left) is a resource of suggestions, very like the ‘Examples of what children do’ in the Foundation Stage. This is not a list of the observations everyone has to do; they are reminders of the pitch and level at which it makes sense to observe across that age range. The other two columns - ‘Effective practice’ and ‘Planning and resourcing’ - are similar to the right hand pages throughout the Foundation Stage Ile entitled ‘What does the practitioner need to do?’ ïndeed, you will Ind familiar sentences from that resource.

Value children as themselves

Young children need to be and feel valued for what they are at the moment. Their development unfolds because they are encouraged and allowed to relish what they are learning at the moment. Four-year-olds need to have been enabled to enjoy being three-year-olds, Ive-year-olds need to have spent time being unharassed four-year-olds. Such a perspective may seem obvious but, unfortunately, the sense of pressure felt by some early years practitioners, and some parents, is that children, even young children have effectively been pushed onto a treadmill, especially an intellectual treadmill. There has been far too much ‘getting children ready for…’, ‘making sure that they can… because…’ and a sense that ‘children must/have to/ought to..’

The aim of the Early Years Foundation Stage should be that children have a full and enjoyable experience of learning. Despite the rhetoric of some educational materials, the aim of the Early Years Foundation Stage is not

Food for thought

Young children are important as themselves; they are not pre-anything. For this reason I avoid using the word ‘pre-schooler’ to refer to children under ﬁve years. We do not call adolescents ‘pre-workers’ or people in their ﬁfties ‘pre-retirees’!

Some early years settings are known as pre-schools. Consequently that term for a group is familiar, although by no means do all settings choose to use this term. There are some potential problems about deﬁning your group, and therefore your early years experiences, as ‘prior to school’. However, in my view, calling young children themselves ‘pre-schoolers’ seriously increases the risk that their learning and experiences are valued only as school preparation.