School Readiness

Cache Level 3 Diploma in Early Years Education and Care

(EYE) (VRQ)

Extended Essay 2

The Early Years Educator follows the current early years framework in the development of children’s school readiness.

This essay will be about the Early Years Educator following the current early year’s framework in the development of children’s school readiness. Practitioners follow the frameworks as it gives them support an assimilation approach to learning. Current frameworks gives the practitioners a set of principles which they need to follow to meet the needs of a child. It supports them by helping them to set early learning goal for the child to meet. The early learning goal is set for the practitioners to look back to and to see if child is reaching to their milestones. It will include how practitioners could support children through their transition. School readiness is a term which is used to get the child ready for school.  However it is important for practitioners to follow the EYFS framework to support the through their development.

In relation to the current framework that we follow is the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the National Curriculum. The EYFS is divided into seven parts. These are the areas that the child is developing and this is used by early year’s practitioners until the child is five so this means it is used in nursery, preschools, reception class. Reception class is when the child moves onto school. The specific areas in which that the current framework links into school readiness are literacy as the child will need to enjoy reading books and developing new sounds when reading the book. Literacy will give the child an opportunity on learning how to write with different letter formations and starting to explore phonics by learning the different sounds. Mathematics is a specific area of a child’s development as it helps the child to learn about the numbers and count children will develop their mathematical language as they will explore the measurements, capacity, time,  space, shapes, money, adding and subtracting. It is important to link play into the specific areas the child needs to develop as the child loves to play and it will give the practitioner an opportunity to observe the child so that the practitioner could get a clear view on the child’s strength and weaknesses. Piaget developed a task based on conceptual understanding this used to assess whether the children understand critical importance of one to one correspondence this is when the child needs to match one object to the number one or two objects to the number 2. One to one correspondence is being able to use the knowledge to actually look at the number and out that number of objects for example if it says on a number card the number 3 then the child will then have to count out three bears.  Piaget argued that true understanding of numbers requires an ability to reason about the effects of transformations that is beyond preschool children. Piaget believed that children at different stages cannot develop the same content. He also said that they cannot learn about numbers, for example, until they reach the concrete operational stage that is roughly when they’re the ages of 7-11 this is according to Piaget.

All spontaneous and planned opportunities should be used to engage children. A clear understanding allows for the practitioner to identify where the child is in their own development linked to the EYFS and National curriculum. It is important as an EYP to understand the stages of child development. This helps the EYP and parents to know what to expect and how to support the child as they grow and develop. Children learn more quickly during their early years than at any other time in life. They need love and nurturing to develop a sense of trust and security that turns into confidence as they grow. Babies and young children grow, learn and develop rapidly when they receive love and affection, attention, encouragement and mental stimulation, as well as nutritious meals and good health care.

The national curriculum begins with the age of 5 to 16 which is key stage 1 to 4. The compulsory subjects are Math’s, English, Science and the additional subjects are History, music, arts and design and physical education which allows the children to explore and express themselves.

Early year’s practitioner plays an important role on getting the children’s to be ready for school. The practitioner’s will have to  enable the children’s on their daily routines, EYP will need to support the children’s independent and self-help skills as this is important because the children will need to know on how to do things more independently as they will not be getting much help as the used to before. Practitioners will need to use different assessment strategies to prepare the preschoolers in meeting towards their transition to reception as it will be a big step for the preschool child as it will be all new to the child. The practitioner’s role is to follow the procedure and to support the child to get ready for school. As an individual you should be aware of the different types of things in which you could do to prepare and encourage them. Early years practitioners will need to provide the children with activities, experiences and opportunities to develop the skills that are essential to be ready for school. It is very important for the practitioner to support the child to be ready for the change in environment and staff. For example when the go from nursery to school it will be completely different environment as the nursery environment is small and the school environment is big and meeting new staff could uncomfortable for the child as the may not want to share anything with someone new.  The early years practitioner will have completed observations of the children and documented the individual child’s progress and development and filed it into their learning journey which then will go to the school that the child goes to then this information will then be used by the member of staff from school as it will help them settle the child and move them onto their next stage of development and learning. Children need to be ready for school for them to have a smooth transition. The school needs to gather all the information that is needed to prepare for the child’s individual needs and interest. Parent and carers play vital role in preparing the child to be ready for school.

“Never help the child with a task at which they feel they could succeed”.

Maria Montessori believed that practitioner should not always help the child to achieve the task because the child needs to have an opportunity to do it themselves as this will give them the confidence on doing other tasks to. As this will prepare them for school as they will need to do independent tasks for example dressing themselves. When the child is able to do stuff themselves this boost their confidence and self-esteem.