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CHCPR510A: Design, implement and evaluate programs and care routines for children

Design and implement programs with all those involved

Contents

Use or establish opportunities to gather all necessary information from and communicate to those involved 3

Who are the stakeholders? 3

Parents and families 4

Identify ideas and concerns about the current program, care routines and setting and consider them in designing the program and care plans 11

Program approaches 11

What is your vision for early childhood / children? 13

Choosing a programming approach 15

Design and implement programs that reflect the philosophy and goals of the service 17

What is a philosophy? 17

Main philosophies and approaches to early childhood curriculum18

Developing a philosophy and program goals for the service 22

Program goals 24

Developing your own personal philosophy 25

Appendix 1 27

Jane’s plan 27

2 Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCPR510A: Reader LO 9396 © NSW DET 2010

Use or establish opportunities to gather all necessary information from and communicate to those involved

Who are the stakeholders?Before designing a new program, you should identify and consider ideas and concerns that have arisen around the current program.

We often talk about stakeholders within children’s services but what exactly are they? A stakeholder is someone with a direct interest, involvement or investment in something.

Activity 1

Along with these stakeholders there are other bodies that will impact on the service design and operation:

• Legislative and regulatory bodies such as the Department of Community Services and Department of Family and Community Services (for Child Care Benefit eligible services)

• Quality assurance systems such as QIAS, NSW Curriculum Framework• Professional such as Early Childhood Australia and the Early Childhood

Code of Conduct, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

While each of these bodies has a direct impact on the service design and operation they fall into a category of mandates and constraints rather than direct stakeholders. We will explore some of these mandates and constraints further on.

Each stakeholder will have their own set of expectations for the service, their own needs and their own beliefs and values on what is important and how the program or service should be organised and operate.

The challenge for early childhood professionals when developing a service or even reviewing its operations is to gather these expectations, needs, opinions and beliefs from all stakeholders and somehow put them together in a way that unities them into a common goal.

Let’s look at each of the main stakeholders within a children’s service and identify their expectations and needs. Values and beliefs will always be a challenging area

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCPR510A: Reader LO 9396 3© NSW DET 2010

to tackle and may be specific to your service, so we will look at some of the more general ones in this topic and in later topics focus on how to gather these and integrate them into service operation.

Parents and familiesParents and families are a large stakeholder in the services and comprise people with varying needs, expectations and perceptions of children’s services. However varied these are services need to consider them and meet them where it is possible. This does not mean a service needs to completely turn around their programs and service operation every time a parent has a new idea—it simply means we need to take them into account when changes are planned and gather their opinions and ideas on the changes.

Activity 2

In order to work effectively with families and parents, services need to build a partnership with them and include them in the decision making process.

Strategies to gather information and opinions from families There are many techniques to gather information from parents to cover many areas and I’m sure you’re thinking about forms such as enrolment forms. These will have been covered in earlier units so we’ll concentrate on strategies to gather information on the program.

First thoughts in this area are generally ‘let’s do a survey’ or get parents to fill out a form. While this is a good tool we need to remember that parents are busy people and while they have every intention to fill out the form may not get around to it. Or if they’re like myself will find it in the bottom of the child’s bag about two days after it was due back and think ‘I won’t bother because it’s too late now.’ These surveys and questionnaires can be very useful for gathering information when feedback is required for accreditation or to assess changes that have been made as they give parents time to reflect on the information and questions and services will gain valuable and detailed feedback.

If we want information on the program we need to make it easy for parents. Here are some useful strategies for gathering information and opinions from families:

Transition communication Discussions can occur at arrival and departure times. This is essential in keeping both staff and parents informed about the child. It enables both parties to pass on


information and allows parents to feel involved in their child's day. This should be one of many types of communication as occasionally children are collected and dropped off by other relatives or family friends and if this is the only communication strategy information may be forgotten to be passed on. You may need to be creative in these situations and maybe write down quick messages to ensure parents get them.

Daily information sheet or day book

Day book

This is a useful communication strategy and will allow both groups to feel involved in the child's day. It does require a commitment from staff to ensure it is organised and up to date at the end of the day. An information sheet might cover issues such as what the child ate, sleep times, toileting for infants and toddlers. The day book could cover the provisions the child was involved in, who they played with, the topics of interest that children are working with, stories and songs from group time, changes to routines or even exciting events from that day. Many day books also have space for parents to add comments.

Communication books These allow for individual details on children and what they were involved in during the day. They also allow for parents to write comments and have not only a sharing of information but suggestions for follow up in the program etc. The down side is the time requirement and commitment but they are excellent to personalize the program for each individual child and family.

NewslettersThese are important for keeping parents informed of what's been happening in the service and what's coming up in the future.


Newsletter

Parent/educator meetings These can be conducted at any time throughout the year and can be formal and scheduled at a particular time each year or informal and happen when the educator and parent have time. These meetings allow parents time to review their child's developmental profile and discuss any concerns or directions they want to take.

Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP)Whilst these are more common when working with children with additional needs, many services are now writing them for each family in care. It allows parents and educators to meet individual requirements for each child and to formulate outcomes in a partnership.

Information evenings These are meetings to pass on specific knowledge to parents. They might include topics such as school readiness, changes to Child Care Benefit, information on how the new program will work and what to expect. Not only do these meeting enable two way sharing of information but they assist the development of friendships and networks between families.


Surveys

Survey

Activity 3

Children as stakeholdersWith the emphasis of children being seen as capable and resourceful we need to consider what it is children want in terms of our service. If the service philosophy states that the service will offer an emergent program then we need to develop strategies to gather information from children on their needs and expectations.

Imagine you are a child in care, how would you like your day to be?

I’m sure you have recorded the important aspects of choosing own play, making friends and playing with them, creating new games, listening to stories and reading books, being spoken to with care and respect, the opportunity to make choices such as when to have morning tea, which piece of fruit you’d like and so on.

Children deserve to be able to make informed choices and control aspects of the program rather than be directed on what to do at all times of the day.

Some children from different cultural backgrounds


Strategies to gather information from childrenAs you are working with the children all day long you will find that you are continually gathering information from them. One of the main ways we gather information about children is through observation. This is still important but we need to make a conscious effort to ask children about what they would like in the program. There is no need for this to be a formal collection but simple discussions about what equipment they would like put out, what stories would they like etc.

Services in Reggio Emilia see gathering information from children on the program as vital so each day will conduct a morning meeting to ask the children what they would like to work on, which projects are continuing, what additional resources need to be made available etc. This is a simple technique we could use on a regular basis.

If children appear to be interested in a particular topic a useful strategy for gathering information on what they want to do/ learn is to sit with them and create a web or mind map about what they want to find out. For example if they are interested in the ocean ask what they know about the ocean, record this and then ask what they want to find out. Our first ideas on this topic might be on the beach or animals in the ocean but the children may actually be interested in why and how the waves move and both these ideas require different approaches and provisions.

Staff as stakeholders Staff in services come from many different backgrounds, have training and experiences from many different areas and with that bring many ideas, needs and expectations. Working with a group of staff to provide high quality service means gathering information from all staff and recognizing the varying levels of knowledge and expertise.

It is vital that staff feel a sense of belonging to the service and that their ideas, views and expertise are valued. There needs to be a strong partnership between management and staff.

Strategies to gather information from staffThe most effective strategy to gather information from staff is verbally—to discuss our ideas and how to put them into practice. The most effective way to do this is via programming meetings where staff have the opportunity to reflect on the children, their interests and discuss how to program specifically to meet these.

All programming meetings should have an agenda to ensure all areas are covered and minutes to provide a written record of what happened, decisions etc.


Minutes should have date, time and place of meeting, names of attendees, apologies and notes on what was discussed and decisions made.

Some suggestions for a programming agenda are:

• think of ideas for the programming format• consider how you will seek feedback from parent’s about the children’s

interests• how you are going to program for focus children?• provisions you plan to implement• how will you gather information from other staff and provisions they

would like included?• how are staff to assist with programming and who is responsible for each

area/item?• how will you communicate the program to staff and families and how you

will gather feedback?• gather suggestions from other staff for the program.

Staff within the room will also be communicating on a daily basis about the program and discussing possible changes, adaptations or directions as they occur.

Another useful method is a team meeting where all the staff can come together to discuss issues relating to programming and look at additional or new programming methods and strategies.

Whichever method is used it’s vital that staff keep written notes or minutes of meetings and discussions so there are clear indicators of what is required. Programming that is in someone’s head is not always available when needed if the person is away that day.

Management and ownersThis is another important group of stakeholders as often they control the financial resources needed to run the program.

Staff need to work in conjunction with management and owners and need to follow any policies prescribed by them. An effective management approach should allow for staff to be involved in policy development and to work in partnership with management. Most management committees and owners acknowledge the expertise of staff and allow for them to prepare and implement an appropriate program.

The effect of constraints and mandates on the programThere are more influences on how the program will operate than just the people who make up the stakeholders in the service. As mentioned earlier, the varying


levels of government place mandates on service operation such as Regulations, QIAS and OHS considerations.

Activity 4

Other constraints are the physical aspects of the building and yard. It can be very difficult to program for continuous indoor / outdoor play if the building is made up of many rooms within limited access to the outdoor area.

The available human resources will also impact on the program offered along with hours of operation and rostering.

Physical constraints of the building and the human resources constraints need to be considered on a service by service basis as each will be very different. Questions that you might ask to gather information on your service include:

• how many staff work at the service?• what types of rosters operate?• what expertise or special skills do staff have?• what aspects of the room are able to be easily moved?• what access is there from the room to the yard?• is the room / yard easy to supervise?

Service mandates such as Regulations will apply to a wide range of services and programs. The Regulations prescribe the groups sizes, size of rooms, numbers and qualifications of staff, toileting and safety procedures, administration and records to be kept along with the program offered.

Activity 5


Identify ideas and concerns about the current program, care routines and setting and consider them in designing the program and care plans

Program approaches There are many different approaches to programming within early childhood services and the majority of services choose a program approach that reflects their philosophy. Sometimes the approach will be well recognised and others will be a combination of a range of approaches or philosophies. Emergent curriculum and Reggio Emilia are innovative approaches to programming but both have aspects of Dewey, Piaget, Montessori, Gardner and even Steiner within them. Many educators will select aspects that they believe in from a number of philosophies and approaches and use them to develop an approach for their service that reflects their beliefs and the context of the service—children, families, educator and community.

Curriculum approaches and styles currently being used in services are:

• Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)• Reggio Emilia• The Project approach• Emergent curriculum• Play-based curriculum• Multiple intelligences• Child centred curriculum• Inclusive curriculum• Montessori• Steiner

Let’s gather some brief information on some of these approaches.

Activity 6


Developmentally appropriate practice Sue Bredekamp and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) formulated the Developmentally Appropriate Approach (DAP) in 1987.

This approach centres on providing curriculum and learning experiences to match children’s development. There are two aspects—age appropriateness and individual appropriateness.

DAP presumes that all children follow the same pattern of development and can be expected to accomplish milestones / skills around the same age. It also recognises that there will be some variations to this due to individual children’s learning styles and personality and social and cultural context.

Services using this approach depend heavily on completing observations of children, noting children’s skills and needs, formulating goals for children and planning age appropriate experiences.

Reggio Emilia approachDuring the last ten years this approach has begun to influence a large number of early childhood services and practices. The approach is named after the province in Italy where it was founded and does not refer to the philosopher’s name.

After the World War II, the community of Reggio Emilia came together to rebuild the schools and were guided by Loris Malaguzzi whose vision was to create settings where children would learn, create, grow, collaborate, revisit experiences and reflect on them, where all—including children, families, educators and community—felt a sense of belonging. Malaguzzi strived to make children’s learning visible not only to them but to others. He believed that children were capable and constructed their knowledge and understanding through explorations, collaborating with others and continually revisiting and reflecting.

The term, ‘One hundred languages of children’ is a phrase that Malaguzzi used to remind us that children communicate in a wide variety of ways.

Visit the following web site to find out more about the one hundred languages.

http://slc.educ.ubc.ca/eJournal/Issue1/Kocher.pdf

With the Reggio Emilia approach there are six essential areas:

• parental involvement• environment• role of teachers• curriculum• project work• documentation.


http://slc.educ.ubc.ca/eJournal/Issue1/Kocher.pdf

Activity 7

This approach works extremely well within Reggio Emilia and northern Italy and educators have been using, developing and extending it since the 1940s. Remember that our Australian culture is very different and that while we cannot replicate this approach in full, we can consider the essential characteristics can use these to create an approach that reflects our cultures, values and lifestyles.

There are many Australian early childhood services and schools that are developing and using their own approaches based on the writings and beliefs of Malaguzzi.

Emergent curriculum This approach concentrates on recording, documenting and responding to what happens throughout the day rather than predetermined planning. It is a very interest based curriculum that builds upon and responds to children’s skills, abilities, interests, knowledge and children’s social relationships and interactions.

Educators are encouraged to create provocations to appeal to children, capture their curiosity and interest and create new learning opportunities.

Emergent curriculum allows educators to respond to spontaneous or unexpected events. Under this approach children are viewed as capable and that new skills and knowledge will emerge from their interactions with others and as they work on areas or investigations of interest.

Renowned authors and child educators, Deb Curtis, Margie Carter and Ann Pelo have explored this area and there are a number of books and videos available. ‘Designs for living and learning: Transforming early childhood environments’ provides educators with many ideas on how to use and set up the environment to spark children’s interests and present materials in an aesthetic manner.

Visit Hilltop Children’s Centre at http://www.hilltopcc.com/documents/Teaching/elements_of_teaching_at_hilltop.htm and click on emergent curriculum to get a glance of a program in action.

What is your vision for early childhood / children?The majority of operators within the business, corporate and educational sectors have an overall vision for their business or service—an image of how it looks and will work. This is also important for children’s services. When designing a program or setting we need to have an image of what it will look like and what we would like to see within it.


Most of those working in children’s services occasionally dream of starting their own centre, which reflects their understandings and images of what children should experience. Imagine you have been given the opportunity to open your own centre. Think about the things that you see as important—what would you want children to see, do, touch, taste, smell and the ways or opportunities that you consider important for play, learning and interacting.

There is a strong need to be authentic and for children to experience the real world.

Activity 8

Jane’s planJane is in the planning stages for her centre and has decided to plan her vision for children and the centre before having the plans drawn as there are a few ideas within her vision that need specific spaces. Jane feels very strongly that children, families, educators and the community should sense a connection to the centre and consider it a place where they belong.

As part of creating this sense of belonging, Jane envisages an open and spacious foyer with opportunities for families and children to sit, touch interesting objects and have work and learning displayed. She needs to consider her vision when describing the centre needs to the architect.

Go to Appendix 1 to see the beginning of Jane’s vision, as she explores her ideas and builds images of the service there may be changes. Visions are not static—they change and grow as we gather more information and experiences what works and what could work better.

Activity 9

Activity 10

Our vision for children and our image of who they are, become the underlying foundations to our own personal and our service philosophies.

While visiting the above web sites you may have also read their service philosophies, this will give you some background information for the next section where we will explore some of the main philosophies and approaches to early childhood.


Choosing a programming approach There are a number of programming approaches that educators might use in a program. It is important to use an approach that compliments the service philosophy so they are working together to achieve the service goals and provide quality care for children.

Educators need to work together to decide on the programming approach and this approach must echo their philosophy and program goals.

A service provider who decides to follow a Reggio Emilia approach because there is no service in the area doing that, may think they have created a marketing edge—we can give you a different, more modern program than other services so choose us. But if the underlying beliefs of the importance and values of this approach are not understood or believed then the service and educators will experience difficulties.

For example, the visual diaries and documentation that make the children’s learning visible to the families, community and the children themselves are complex and challenging to create. It is more than just recording what the children did today. They unfold a story about the child’s achievements, how the children worked together and collaborated, explain the importance of what happened in terms of the children, relationships and child development, pose questions about why children work this way and describe the learning process. A simple day book with a few posed photos and a comment like ‘today the children enjoyed playing in the sandpit’ provides little of this information.

There is a lot of work in implementing a Reggio approach and educators need to be committed to it. Not only does documentation require time, effort and resources but so too does the observation and professional questioning processes of the adults to reflect on children’s interests and how these can be supported and extended. If the service management and educators do not truly believe in this approach it is almost impossible to implement.

Within NSW, all children’s services should reflect the understandings and practices outlined in the NSW Curriculum Framework and this document should be used and considered when planning a programming approach. Read the section, ‘The nature of provisions with children’ within the Framework.http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/documents/childcare_framework.pdf

As you gather more information to underpin the program, and develop your own personal philosophy you will begin to feel attracted to particular programming approaches.

Go back to vision you developed earlier for your child care service—do you still see this as the type of service you would like to provide? Does it match or tie in with your personal philosophy?


Record any changes you might like to make.

Think back to Jane’s vision—what programming approach do you think will assist Jane to implement her vision

If you thought that an emergent curriculum or a Reggio approach would help her to achieve the vision you are on the right track. Jane might need to take elements from each of these approaches to bring her vision to life within the service.


Design and implement programs that reflect the philosophy and goals of the service

What is a philosophy? Simply put a philosophy is a set of beliefs or a vision for how we want our service to operate or for how we will behave and act as an early childhood educator.

We all have values and beliefs about how children learn, the types of experiences and learning opportunities that should be provided for children and how these should happen and perceptions of children. Over time, many different educational philosophers and educators working with children have developed many ideas on the best or wisest methods to provide care and education for children.

Look at the following selection of some of the major perceptions through time.

Ancient Greece: the main emphasis is on the child’s character. Children’s knowledge is within the soul and their body is the home for the soul.

Christian era: medieval: children are innocent and need to be protected from the evil world of adults.

Puritanism: Children need to be raised with strict discipline as they are all born with original sin. There is a constant battle to prevent the devil and evil from gaining hold over body and soul so punishment must be harsh to banish him.

Human maturation: Children are empty vessels and are born with no knowledge. As children grow older they will acquire skills and knowledge based on the instruction and experiences provided by adults and these skills are dependent on maturation. A young child cannot be given complex cognitive tasks as the mind is not ready for it.

Creative perception: children will grow up to be competent, capable and well-adjusted if they are provided with an environment that is loving, healthy and creative.

Developmental model: this is based on scientific investigation and study. Children grow and learn in predetermined stages of development. There is a strong focus on providing care that reflects structured models and each stage must be


mastered before moving to the next. In this model the ‘experts’ are in control and children have limited or no input. This is a very needs based model.

Activity 11

Main philosophies and approaches to early childhood curriculum Throughout the years there have been many different approaches to early childhood and as we gather more information about children and how they learn, educators and those working with children modify their approach to compliment current thinking. If you examine the approaches to programming being used you can usually see that they have been based on earlier philosophies with some modifications to reflect the current context.

Piaget believed that children learn through play and hands on, concrete experiences. Emergent curriculum, developmentally appropriate practice, the project approach and even the Reggio Emilia approach all have this need for children to play, touch and learn through real experiences within the foundations of the program.

However, Piaget believed that children’s cognitive processes can only advance as they mature. It simply isn’t possible for children to perform complex, abstract thought at an early age. Brain research and the success of approaches such as Reggio Emilia, emergent curriculum and the project approach are showing that this isn’t always the case. Young children can perform complex, cognitive processes and their approaches support this understanding and foster opportunities for this to happen.

Take a look at the following web site to see a young child make an advanced, abstract connection.

http://www.bhsu.edu/education/edfaculty/dcalhoon/laura.html

These photos of Laura are powerful images, they show that even though children may have limited verbal communication skills they can still get the message across and can understand and make connections from the real to abstract world.

To program for children, educators need to decide just which approach and philosophy they are going to follow or if they prefer to develop their own approach that is a combination of a number of different philosophies or views. In order to do this, educators need to have a clear understanding of the main philosophies and approaches, so let’s explore a few of these philosophy styles and theories. Remember there are many more so it’s important to review some of the earlier topics on child development to refresh your understanding of the theories.


http://www.bhsu.edu/education/edfaculty/dcalhoon/laura.html

John DeweyDewey believed that change brings new opportunities and that we need to embrace these and think of new ways to help our children become socially responsible people rather than cling to the past and parent/educate using older methods. There is a need to move with the times—changes within our world are vast and rapid and we need to adapt our ways to meet them.

His theory saw education as child-centred, active and interactive and that it should involve the child’s social world and the community. He believed that children need to interact with other people, work both alone and cooperatively with their peers and adults. Education should also reflect the child’s interests and backgrounds and that their social and cultural worlds are important. Dewey saw learning as life long and that educators need to not only teach skills and knowledge but also help children to live and exist in our society.

Educators need to observe children to determine the experiences children are interested in and are ready for. Educators need to be able to guide children’s learning, engage their minds, and work collaboratively with children and not just instruct. Curriculum needs to be purposeful and assist children to make sense of the world.

It’s hard to believe that his theory and beliefs were written during the early to mid 1900s, as they are so reflective of what’s happening in early childhood education today.

Maria Montessori Maria Montessori has had a huge influence on early childhood practices over the last century and educators still use methods and tools developed by her.

Montessori was the first female physician in Italy and spent the early part of her career working with children who were mentally handicapped where she realized that the children needed stimulation and activity. She then worked with children from Italy’s working class in Rome around 1907, whilst their parents were at work. While working in this setting she expanded the idea of learning and education coming from careful observation and experimentation. Many of the discoveries she made during this time have influenced early childhood practices and education.

Activity 12

If you find Montessori fascinating there are many sites and articles to be found using a variety of search engines or online encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Services that follow the beliefs of Montessori will ensure that there are blocks of uninterrupted time for playing, exploring and using materials and equipment, hands on learning opportunities, the program and environment will be ordered and children will have the opportunity to be involved in the routine life of the service including meal preparation and cleaning.

Lev VygotskyVygotsky was a Russian developmental psychologist, who believed that social interaction influenced cognitive development. He did not divide development into stages as he believed that learning and development is a life long process that begins at birth and continues until death and is far too complex to split into stages.

His sociocultural theory focused on the connections between people and the cultural context they interact in and share experiences. The child’s development is guided by social interaction and their cultural context. Vygotsky believed that tools such as reading and writing are developed within cultures to communicate with others and that initially children use these predominately for communication but the use and internalisation of these tools lead to higher level thinking skills. He believed that thought and language does not exist or function without each other.

Vygotsky proposed the Zone of Proximal Development—the gap between what children can learn unassisted and what children can learn when guided by an adult or a more capable peer. Educators need to have a thorough knowledge of each child. We need to be able to see when a child is becoming frustrated and would be able to gain the concept or skill if guided by the educator, thus scaffolding their learning.

If you subscribe to the beliefs and theories of Vygotsky then your program will have numerous opportunities for children to work together in a social setting, the relationships between children and children and children and adults will be important and your setting will concentrate on providing areas where children can work together in groups.

Activity 13

Some useful sites to continue investigating Vygotsky’s theories are;

Vygotsky resources: http://www.kolar.org/vygotsky/

The Vygotsky Project: http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/vygotsky/


Jean PiagetJean Piaget has been a significant influence on early childhood education and care. Think back to your earlier child development topics where you will have explored his theories in detail. He believed that children learn through play and that development, skills and knowledge occur in a particular pre-ordained manner. Children move through the developmental stages at a set rate and cannot skip stages.

Piaget also saw children as theorists—continually taking on board information, applying it to their situation and then adapting it in light of new information they had gained. This was his process of assimilation and accommodation.

Piaget believed that children needed to have hands on, concrete experiences before they could progress to higher level or abstract thinking and that children learnt about the world and their place in it by exploring and acting on their environment. The phrase ‘play is a child’s work’ is often attributed to him.

Activity 14

Howard Gardner Howard Gardner proposed a theory of multiple intelligences that suggests there is more than one intelligence—in fact there are 8 and possibly 9 as he is currently exploring Existentialist Intelligence.

He considers children and adults to be individuals who all have skills and areas that we enjoy and excel at and that these fit into our major intelligence. For example, a child who is a capable sportsman and able to problem solve how to fit his/her body into small spaces to complete an obstacle course but struggles to complete other problem solving experiences, is more likely to fit into the Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligence. This doesn’t mean the child is unable to solve problems but is more likely to be successful when the problem or challenge relates or the solution relates to using the body.

When you are good at a task, you enjoy completing that task or similar tasks and so are more likely to continue to develop and build on your skills in that area and become even better. A child, who has reasonable skills playing video games and really enjoys playing them, will continue to spend time playing these games. With practice the child’s skills will continue to improve, the child will move onto more complex games and while enjoying these games and continuing to experience success at completing them and moving to new levels the child’s confidence and competence continues to grow.

Early childhood education should not be ‘one-size fits all’. Not all children are academic but all children have the ability to learn, be successful and to teach others in their area of intelligence. As educators we need to provide learning


opportunities for children that reflect their ‘intelligence’ and learning style. Knowledgeable and skilled educators should be able to assist children to transfer skills they have learn and developed into other areas.

Gardner saw the arts and creativity as playing major roles in children’s learning. Children are able to explore many cognitive concepts through their play and creative explorations.

Gardner believed that children themselves were powerful teachers and that learning occurs in social settings and contexts. Instead of educators being the sole facilitator of learning, he saw children as ‘peer mentors’ assisting each other to learn and develop skills.

Services that follow Gardner’s beliefs would provide children with a wide range of learning opportunities, the skills educators are assisting children to develop would be presented in a range of ways to reflect the varying intelligences and learning styles of the children, children would be encouraged to assist and show their peers how to complete tasks, children would be encouraged to be creative and learning would take place in small groups.

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr054.shtml

Developing a philosophy and program goals for the serviceThe purpose of the philosophy is to guide the actions and practices of those involved in the service. It assists families to choose a service that reflects or compliments their own beliefs and values and to distinguish between service providers. When educators are looking for positions, a written philosophy will also enable them to choose a service that holds similar beliefs, views and values on children’s learning and development. Overall a philosophy is a valuable and useful document.

Early childhood services are generally guided by the same legal and ethical guidelines (regulations, code of ethics, rights of the child, health and safety guidelines and quality assurance standards) however the type of service provided varies. These variations reflect the service philosophy.

Service philosophies may differ due to:

• Management structure—community based, council sponsored, for profit services, corporate services.

• The type of service and needs being met—preschool, Long Day Care, Out of School Hours Care.

• Local area and geographical differences—the philosophy in a rural service may differ to an urban service.


http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr054.shtml

• The cultural makeup of the community.• Differences in community needs.

As each service addresses the needs of their families, children, educator and the community the result in these aspects of the philosophy will be different. Services are made up of different people from different backgrounds with different views, values and beliefs about caring for children.

Developing a philosophy with all stakeholdersDeveloping a service philosophy is a more complex process than formulating a personal philosophy—we need to ensure that all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute to its development so that all parties are working towards the same thing.

Activity 15

Each of these stakeholders will have a differing view and have varying influence over the philosophy. Educator bring knowledge of development, theories of learning and programming approaches, experience and their own personal beliefs to the discussion, whereas the owner or management will have the final decision in adopting the philosophy. It’s important to capture the ideas and opinions of each of these groups so that the final philosophy is a true reflection on the service all parties desire to be provided.

Quality Assurance and Accreditation System (QIAS) principle 3.1—Programs reflect a clear statement of centre philosophy and a related set of broad centre goals—provides a clear outline of what should be included.

If you don’t have access to the QIAS Quality Practices Guide: http://www.ncac.gov.au/publication_extracts/qias_qpg_preambles.pdf

Each service will adopt varying methods when developing a philosophy. A very clear outline of these can be found in Programming and planning in early childhood settings by Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett and Farmer.

A general process would be to decide who should be involved, brainstorming and gathering information (this includes asking all stakeholders for input either through discussions, meetings, surveys), formulating a draft philosophy, distributing the draft for comment, reviewing the comments, finalizing the philosophy, publishing the philosophy (distributing via notice board, policy book, web site, newsletters)

Here is Paula West, Paula West, Director of Kanga’s House has to say about a Centre philosophy. Kanga’s House was established in February 1981. Kanga’s House is an 89 place childcare centre with 23 staff. It is community-based and also


work-based and attached to the University of New South Wales. Paula started at Kanga’s in 1989.

‘The philosophy of the centre is like the backbone from where everything springs from, or like the index of a book which will tell you what is coming. It’s an extremely important part of the centre, because it’s where you look to build your procedures, practises, policies — all these come from the philosophy. The philosophy itself comes from things like accreditation, regulations, the Acts,

and also educational current practises of the day. The philosophy also has to reflect the people who come and use the service, but that doesn’t mean it changes every few years as you get new parents into the service. At Kanga’s House we have a very diverse multicultural group of parents and for me the philosophy has to be an all embracing one, so that parents and families can see that they are welcomed, respected, valued. So it’s also to do with the way we interact with families as well as the educational kind of process we do with children on a day to day basis.’

Program goals Program goals provide an additional link between the service philosophy and the program of experiences and learning opportunities provided for children. Program goals will also reflect the service policies.

Goals provide educators with a sense of direction in programming. Goals are much more specific than philosophy statements and generally address programming aspects such as children’s needs, staff practices and the environment.

There are a number of different types of goals:

• long term• short term• child oriented• parent oriented• educational• professional goals—for educators

The philosophy and beliefs about how children learn and develop influence the way a service arranges its program and formulates program goals.


Goals are developed around the service philosophy and requirements of the children.

Services that follow an Inclusive practices approach will develop goals surrounding ways to implement that approach, e.g. to introduce an anti-bias program to meet children’s and families needs and to reflect the diversity within the community.

A child oriented goal would reflect what you would like the children to achieve over a timeframe, e.g. Over this term, children will collaborate in small groups and with educators to conduct investigations into topics of interest.

A professional goal would reflect areas educators would like to achieve to improve practices—eg Educators will visit other services in the area to investigate alternative methods of documentation.

As with philosophies, all stakeholders should have input into service or program goals. Agreed goals enable all parties to work together towards a common outcome. The driving force behind program goals should be the centre educators to ensure that the goals are realistic, achievable and link to the service philosophy.

Here is a sample service goal: House at Pooh Corner—University of NSW: http://www.poohcorner.unsw.edu.au/goals.htm

Developing your own personal philosophyEarly childhood services have a philosophy—a statement that outlines their beliefs and values on children’s learning and development. This philosophy reflects the vision they have for their service and guides the practices of educator and others within the service.

A useful process for educators within early childhood is to record their own personal philosophy that reflects their own beliefs, values and ideas. This assists you to clarify your understandings and identify practices that will enable you to follow your philosophy.

A personal philosophy is not static and may change as you develop new skills, gather new knowledge, take on differing roles and work within different services and communities.

When developing your personal philosophy you will need to consider legal and ethical guidelines as well as theories of development and program approaches. You should have a good understanding of:


http://www.poohcorner.unsw.edu.au/goals.htm

United Nations Convention on the rights of the child: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

State licensing regulations and guidelines: http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/html/about/legislation.htm

The QIAS, FDCQA or OSHCQA accreditation systems: http://www.ncac.gov.au/resources/resources_index.htm

Early Childhood Australia code of ethics: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/code_of_ethics/early_childhood_australias_code_of_ethics.html

The NSW Curriculum Framework: The Practice of Relationships: http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/documents/childcare_framework.pdf

Scenario Rose is an educator who believes children learn through play and has always provided lots of hands on opportunities for the preschoolers in her room. The service director has asked Rose to move into the toddler room next term. As she has had limited experience with toddlers Rose has decided to research working with this age group by visiting a friend who works in another service. This service is also following some aspects of the Reggio Emilia approach which Rose has not heard much about. She borrows some books on the approach and is intrigued by the thought of supporting children’s learning through small group investigations and how the environment acts as a third teacher. Rose still believes that children learn through play but also believes that children can learn within a social context and by collaboration with each other. Her philosophy grows and changes as she takes on board the new information.

Rose’s early philosophy—Children learn through play and need lots of opportunities to play in an unhurried manner. Children need access to hands on / concrete materials.

Rose’s recent philosophy—Children learn through play and social interaction and collaboration with other children and adults. In order to foster this I will provide experiences based on the children’s interests and will encourage children to work together in small groups. I will use the environment to entice children to work together by choosing materials that need more than one child to use or manage them and by setting tables for two or more children to sit at.

Rose’s initial philosophy outlined beliefs but her more recent one also listed some practices or strategies she would use to make it happen. A philosophy is a ‘living’ document and will grow and change with us over the years. A philosophy that suggests strategies or actions is more useful in guiding practices to reflect the philosophy.


Appendix 1

Jane’s plan Jane’s vision—creating a place to:

Play • Explore materials, equipment and the world• Opportunities to play freely— unhurried and uninterrupted, with others

or by myself• Inside or outside play

Choose and be responsible• Participate or just to watch• Make decisions about snack times, rest times• Take initiative

Collaborate and learn• Share knowledge, skills and interests with others• Work in teams and develop skills in negotiating, sharing, listening,

respecting, valuing the contributions and opinions of others• Undertake investigations and project work that is real and interest based

Belong• Be a part of the group and to be visible in it as an individual • Work is valued and displayed • Diversity and culture respected• Sense of welcome—aesthetic environment with photos of staff, children,

familles• Spoken to in a sensitive and respectful manner at all times• Be visible in the community

Grow and be myself• Care for myself and develop self-help skills• Opportunities to grow emotionally and be empathetic toward others• Care for others and the environment• Respected as a unique individual


Documents

CLIPS Word Template - sielearning.tafensw.edu.au€¦ · Web viewI’m sure you have recorded the important aspects of choosing own play, making friends and playing with them, creating