Unit 5 Assignment In this assignment I will be covering the assignment criteria for Unit 5 which is the principles underpinning the role of the practitioner working with children. The responsibility of the practitioner is to work as part of a team with other professionals and staff members effectively to bring children and parents the best possible service i. e. working with social workers, speech and language therapists, and family support workers.
Practitioners must also have a working partnership with parents, to work effectively with the child as the parents are the primary carers and they will know what the child is like at home and what the child’s interests are. For example they would have a policy called ”parents as partners”. They would give their opinions and views about their child’s progress and development, what they are going to plan for the child to make sure they are meeting the child’s needs as well as trying to provide the best opportunity for learning.
All practitioners must provide an inviting, relaxed and welcoming environment for the parents and children, and for any other people that come into the setting. They must have a professional relationship with the parents of the child and they must keep regular contact by getting the parents involved and participate in their child’s development and progress as much as possible. They must follow the rules of confidentiality and must work appropriately to the principles of the sector, meeting the individual learning needs of each child, planning and providing activities and experiences that help each child learn and develop further (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007). For example creating individual learning plans for a child and what steps are going to have to be taken in order to help the child’s development, providing plenty of activities that can support each area of the child’s development, trying to include new experiences for the child i. e. “Forest School” the experience of outdoor activities. Taster days in primary school providing experiences in the setting such as foam shapes and the children can play and explore. Knowledge and understanding of a child’s individual needs is important when maintaining professional relationships with children and their parents ecause the parents are the main carers, and they know about the needs of their child i. e. the practitioner needs to find out as much information from the parents about the child, so that they can care for the child in the best possible way and the needs such as medication the child has to take, any allergies or disabilities the child may have and what interests does the child have. Every child has got individual needs that the practitioner has to meet and must not discriminate against a particular child.
They need to know the child’s needs, so activities can be adapted to meet those needs (Tassoni. P et al, 2007) i. e. a child has difficulty with learning the alphabet so the practitioner can adapt an activity that lets the child learn the alphabet ,singing the alphabet in a song for example. If a child is having difficulty with their fine motor skills the practitioner can set up an activity with “foam” that lets the child draw and use their hands in the foam to improve the child’ skills or encourage the child to use chalk.
Being reliable is important in maintaining professional relationships with children and adults, because it contributes to the well-being of the child, being reliable shows you are being professional. Being unreliable causes conflict and will be difficult in maintaining professional relationships with the parents and colleagues (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). For example staff rely on each other to maintain confidentiality and to support one another day to day.
Being accountable is important when maintaining professional relationships with parents and children because you need to be professional when building relationships with the children and adults (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). This involves maintaining confidentiality and supporting families who may be in need. If a child is experiencing difficulties then more people will contribute to helping to resolve the child’s problems and will offer additional support for the child and their parents, achieving a better outcome for the child, their parents, the practitioner and other professionals.
The multi-agency team work together to support the child and their family sharing information in meetings, identifying problems and trying to solve the problems as soon as possible. The practitioner should have regular contact with the other professionals to provide the child and their family with a better service. (The Department for Eduation ,2012 www. education. gov. uk, 2012) The practitioner and other professionals will share ideas and comments, the diversity of the different professionals that the practitioner will be working with will benefit the child and their family.
The other professionals will have different experiences and will be likely to offer more information and solutions to help the child and their family. (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). For example a practitioner is working with other professionals to meet the needs of a child that has special needs and this child will be starting primary school soon and the practitioner is working with someone who is a SENCO worker (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator).
They have got to work out a solution on how best to meet this child’s needs by involving the child in as many activities as possible and encouraging the child to be as independent as possible by making the most of opportunities for the child to take care of himself, putting on shoes, washing hands , letting the child pick what food they would like to eat and drink and then let them pour their own drink. Practitioners have got to work with other professionals when meeting the needs of a child with a hearing impairment and this child may need medical intervention to assist the child’s hearing i. . hearing aids. They would work with a speech and language therapist to help the child’s language and communication, the child would have benefited from the multi-agency approach because the child will have learned specific skills that will help the child to become independent and hopefully this extra help will make the transition to primary school less stressful for the child and make it easier for him to fit in with his peers.
The main purpose for reflective practice is to improve the Practitioners own professional practice and seeing how their standards of practice could be improved, for example looking at their abilities and what they are good at, but also looking at the areas in which they could improve on i. e. lack of communication with staff and parents and this needs to be improved or making more of a contribution in team meetings (Teaching expertise,2008, www. teachingexpertise. com,2012). They should set targets for themselves and plan how they are going to achieve these targets, this helps them be successful in their own professional practice.
Reflective practice also benefits the other staff because the staff can provide feedback to the them on their performance, offer support to them on how to improve (Tassoni. P et al, 2007) i. e. the staff can provide feedback from observing the practitioner with the children or the parents and see how they act around them and if anything could be improved, reflection is a vital component to ensure that staff are improving their practice and are aware of their professional development.
The ten principles have been created and were from the UNCRC (The United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child) and the codes of practice are what the practitioner must follow in order to support the children in the setting and the ten principles of the codes of practice are called the welfare of the child, keeping children safe and maintaining a healthy and safe environment, working in partnership with the parents/families, children’s learning and development, valuing diversity, equality of opportunity, anti-discrimination, confidentiality, working with other professionals and the reflective practitioner (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007). Keeping children safe and maintaining a healthy and safe environment means that the environment around the practitioner and the children has got to be clean and tidy and this links in with the EYFS (The Early Years Foundation Stage) because the environment has got to support the child’s learning and development (Tassoni. P et al, 2007) , another principle is the working in partnership with the parents and this is where the practitioner has got to work with the child’s parents and by working with the child’s parents they are meeting the needs of the child i. . listening to the parents advice on how to meet their child’s needs and this helps the practitioner meet the needs of the child more effectively with that child and this links in with the EYFS (The Early Years Foundation Stage) because this principle links in with the second principle of the EYFS which is positive relationships (Tassoni. P et al, 2007).
The child’s learning and development is important and the practitioner must make observations on that child to assess the child’s learning and development and this links in with the EYFS (The Early Years Foundation Stage) because this principle links in with the fourth principle of the EYFS which is learning and development (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). Valuing diversity means treating each child as an individual, a practitioner must celebrate a child’s culture, language, race and religion (Not discriminating against any of the children at the setting but valuing ll of the children’s individuality) and the principle for equality of opportunity means that all children are given the same opportunity to learn and achieve, even if that child has special needs or a disability, they would still be given the same chance as the other children and this links in with the EYFS (The Early Years Foundation Stage) because this principle links in with the fourth principle of the EYFS which is learning and development (Tassoni. P et al, 2007).
Anti-discrimination is where the practitioner treats every child as an individual and respects every child’s needs and interests and when they have any personal information about a child then this must be kept confidential and not shared with anyone unless they are involved in the child’s care i. e. other professionals, staff members or parents. They must work with other professionals to help support the child and their parents in the best possible way, they must be reflective in order to improve their practice and overcome problems in order to become successful and benefit the children, their parents, staff members and the setting (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007). The welfare of the “Child Principle” means that the practitioner must take the child’s needs into consideration and the “Every Child Matters” links in with this principle because they have to make sure they are meeting the needs of the child as well as meeting the five main points that the “Every Child Matters” states. The principle also links in to the “EYFS” (The Early Years Foundation Stage) because the principle comes under the fourth act which is learning and development (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007). The “Every Child Matters” function is to support children in the five main points they state and these are be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve through learning, make a positive contribution to society and achieve economic well-being and this underpins practitioners when working with children because it influences the day to day practice (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). Every Child Matters” supports the practice because the practitioners are using this in their daily practice to meet the care needs of children (Tassoni. P et al, 2007). , for example they need to make sure that the children are eating healthily so they must use plenty of fruit for snacks and vegetables for lunch to support the children’s growth and nothing unhealthy is provided because that will have a negative effect on the children’s diet and could lead to obesity.
Planning activities where the children will gain a full learning experience from, will gain new skills that will benefit the children later on in life. An example of this is at my placement, the children are given a bowl of fruit for snacks and at lunch the children have vegetables such as carrots and peas and the drinks the children have are milk or water, they choose what they want to drink.
Valuing the children’s interests and experiences allows the practitioner to see what the child most enjoys, for example singing and making music with instruments or painting with sponges and brushes and the practitioner can gain ideas from seeing what the children play with and plan activities around these interests/ experiences so the activity is something that the child is going to want to do and the child will benefit more because they are getting a better learning experience by focusing on an activity that is planned around something they like to do. (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007), for example whilst I was on placement a new child came into the setting but will she would not socialise with any of the other children. The practitioner had to talk to the parents and they said that their child loved to paint at home and loved to put glitter on her paintings so the practitioner was able to plan an activity that the child could be involved in, the practitioner set up the activity and encouraged the child to come over with some other children. The child soon started to talk to the other children. This activity allowed the child’s interests to be valued as well as helping the child to more become confident.
The EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) have introduced a new guideline that changes the way reflective practice is looked at and practitioners now work as a team, they look at the overall issues of practice and work out solutions as a team to be successful in meeting these issues. The practitioner and the other staff members work out these issues by holding regular staff meetings to discuss problems that need resolving, the staff then discuss the possible answers to these issues and this benefits the whole team as well as the individuals. Nursery World, 2008, www. nurseryworld. co. uk ,2012). The research that I am going to be evaluating is the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) guideline for reflective practice. The research will help the practitioner’s professional practice because the practitioner has the benefit of working with the other staff members in the team to work together on how to deal with situations together, therefore this is bringing better practice for the people in the team by co-operating together in the future.
The children and their parents will benefit as well because the practitioner is reflecting on her/his practice as well as the setting’s overall practice. The practitioner’s professional practice will develop because the practitioner is developing new skills, becoming able to look at their own practice and look on what areas need improving. (Nursery World, 2008, www. nurseryworld. co. uk ,2012).
A recent initiative that has recently been introduced is called ECAT (Every Child A Talker), this looks at the importance of children’s language and communication and the environment the child is in and that it should be helping the child learn to communicate and improve their language, ECAT (Every Child A Talker) supports all children, and helps children to develop their language and communication to the best of their abilities by finding out how to encourage/find the correct technique that helps the child to communicate, check agreed plan to see how the child needs helping and how this is going to be planned out.
A professional and well maintained relationship between the practitioner and the parents must be established, this includes supporting children who have English as a second language and the practitioner is set guidelines that they must follow in order to make everyday activities revolve around communication and language. (Meggit. C et al, 2011) The recent Initiative that I am going to be evaluating is called ECAT (Every Child A Talker), the recent initiative will help the professional practice because the communication between the staff and children will promote the characteristics of ECAT.
The children will benefit from this, because they are getting the same response from the staff. By holding regular staff meetings there can discussions on any changes that may need to be made to make the conditions in the environment better for the children’s learning. The day to day activities help to promote the children’s knowledge and vocabulary, this knowledge then helps them when they start school and will continue to help them as they progress through school. Wigan council,www. wigan. gov. uk, 2012) It is important to reflect on your own practice, this allows you to realise what skills you are good at and what you may need to improve on. For example observing children or developing listening skills when talking to parents or children. Reflective practice also helps you set reasonable tasks for yourself, and work towards a goal to help this skill that needs improving (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007), a theoretical example is that of a student, who did not read the physical contact policy at his setting. A child comes up to him wanting to be picked up, he picks the child up and a staff member tells the student to put the child down or he might drop the child, the student questions himself on what he did wrong and feels frustrated. The next day the child asks to be picked up again by the student, but the student has learned from his mistake that he cannot pick the child up so he says no to the child.
Another theoretical example of a student who was interacting with a child, a nursery nurse asked that student to set out the beds but the student did not listen to the nursery nurse. The student continued to interact with the child and when the nursery nurse came to check how the student was doing, she saw that the beds were not put out and the student was slouching on a chair, the nursery nurse was not pleased that the student had not listened.
The student was annoyed that she did not listen and apologised to the nursery nurse the next day in the setting. The reflective cycle lets you look at different situations that you may have been in the setting, ask someone to comment or give you ideas on how to improve on the outcome next time you encounter the situation again, for example talking to your supervisor or another staff member can provide feedback and support.
The reflective cycle lets a person look at what they did in that situation they were in and what action plan is going to be needed next time, sometimes you are going to encounter problems that are going to be hard to figure out but these problems must not stop progression to achievement or else you are going to feel like you are underachieving and not going to be successful. (Tassoni. P et al, 2007), for example a student wanted to plan an activity for the children and this activity was going to be understanding and earning how to count numbers and the next day the activity was carried out by the student with the children but the activity did not go so well and the student felt like she was under achieving and was questioning herself on what went wrong but she remembered the reflective cycle that was mentioned in college and she used the reflective cycle to discover what the problem was and this problem was resolved and the activity was carried out again and it was successful.
One strategy to use when improving your own performance is listening to the opinions of the other people in the setting about your practice, this is a learning strategy because the feedback can be used to consider the ways of improving your own performance and what areas of development you need to improve on. (Tassoni.
P et al, 2007), A theoretical example of a supervisor telling a student they needed to improve on their communication skills to become more confident, the supervisor could suggest different solutions to the area that needs developing, the supervisor could support the student when planning a task that could lead towards developing their communication skills. Another strategy to use when improving your own performance is setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timescale) targets for yourself, and make sure these targets are specific because you need to know what you want to achieve.
The targets need to be measurable because you will need to know when you have been successful in a task, the tasks need to be achievable so you can complete the tasks and aim towards the goal you have set, the tasks need to be realistic so you can set yourself a task that can be done in a reasonable time and know the timescale of how long each task is going to take or otherwise you are going to struggle to meet the tasks if you do not know how long you are going to take with each task. (Tassoni. P et al, 2007), for example if someone wanted to become a teacher, they would need to get training and experience to get towards that goal.
The person would have to plan out in stages of what they were going to achieve, when and how they were going to achieve the task and by the person setting tasks for himself he is motivating himself towards an aim that he wants to achieve to become successful. Another example of a student who wanted to create a folder for their observations, they would need to collect all of their observations they had made on the children. The next step would be to get a file to store them in, but if the student had not done any observations on children then they would need to ask their supervisor if they could do an observation on a child in the setting.
Word count: 3,628 Bibliography The Department for Eduation (2012) “Multi-agency working” http://www. education. gov. uk/childrenandyoungpeople/strategy/integratedworking/a0069013/multi-agency-working Date Accessed 02/05/2012 Teaching expertise (2008) “Self-evaluation to improve early years provision” http://www. teachingexpertise. com/articles/self-evaluation-improve-early-years-provision-4118 Date Accessed 02/05/2012 Nursery World (2008) “Work Matters: Training : Reflective Practice – Time to open your mind” http://www. urseryworld. co. uk/news/861249/Work-Matters-Training-Reflective-Practice-Time-to-open-your-mind Date Accessed 15/06/12 Wigan Council “Every Child a Talker (ECAT)” http://www. wigan. gov. uk/Services/EducationLearning/EarlyYears/Childcare/EveryChildATalker(ECAT). htm Date Accessed 16/06/12 Tassoni. P. Beith. K. Bulman. K. Eldrige. H (2007) CACHE Level 3 Childcare and Education. 4th Edition. Harlow, Essex. Heinemann. Meggit. C Kamen. T Bruce. T Grenier. J (2011) CACHE Level 3 Children and Young people’s Workforce. Hodder Education
