Views & Opinion Continuous Provision
in Early Years Comment by Alicia Blanco-Bayo, Early Years Teacher at Kirkham Grammar School
The understanding of the importance of a well-balanced environment as young children are introduced to the fascinating world of learning, has developed since the Foundation Stage began its journey in 2000. However, for how long has the teaching and learning aspect of Early Years been misinterpreted?
It is suggested that children learn to explore and subsequently feel eager to discover what's around them and a varied group of professionals has tried to make real sense of these guidelines.
But after almost 15 years of trying to apply a series of approaches trialled by experts in the field of Early Years, it is still unclear what educating young children through exposure to a varied and fulfilling learning environment should be about.
When Continuous Provision is suggested, the essential part of modelling through example must be the initial step prior to independent experience. At any age, learning – the ability to apply acquired knowledge to show understanding – is an essential life skill. We demonstrate understanding when we feel comfortable enough to show what we have learnt from others. We mime and copy our peers and slowly develop our own interpretation of the reality we see as individuals. It is by imitating those who have already gained the confidence to show us how to respond in specific situations, that we become part of society.
By providing young children with tools, we are opening a window into a world of curiosity but unless we show them what they can do with those tools; how do we know they will begin to use them as society says they should? Although we want children to develop as individuals, we are also aware of the skills they will need to master in order to survive in our world. As Tina Bruce mentions in one of her 10 common principles of Early Years Education, the best way to prepare children for their adult life is to give them what they need as children. Learning to think and communicate has to be the starting point and how we plan these experiences is the key to an enjoyable and purposeful learning environment.
The breakdown of skills and planning for learning is based on the learning objectives which will be set up for children in each Key Stage, and the role of Early Years is to find the appropriate tools to promote the development of those skills through a mixture of activities that combine spontaneous with focused learning.
Where should the Early Years Practitioner begin? How should learning through spontaneous experiences take place? Is it something that can be planned?
In explaining how important it is to look at every aspect when planning for purposeful learning, I shall take a role-play scenario and look at Communication and Language as the starting point.
Having considered the individual needs of all children, we can enhance the use of a particular role-play area. This means that we know our children because we have spent time observing what their interests and curiosities are and what type of learners they might be.
Circle time around the role-play area will promote curiosity and two very important questions will come to the young learners' minds: what is this?" and "what does this do?" By answering these questions, we shall be opening a whole world of learning opportunities to explore language and develop thinking skills. Planning for purposeful learning begins at this stage. We should have given children some tools and guided them through their use in real life; we should have also listened to children's curiosities and reactions to our explanations and guidelines.
Therefore, we have a collection of observations of individual responses which we must analyse and break down into useful language for interaction. Our planning should reflect how basic vocabulary is used whilst children are bringing role-play to life and once again our interaction should be noted as a key resource to promote language and communication skills. Although this might sound a little technical at times, it is not. It is most certainly essential, however, to look at the need to explore as a strategy for young learners to experiment with structured guidelines. This must be the aim of all Early Years Educators: Plan play opportunities so that there is a purpose to children's participation. In this way the development of basic language and thinking ability will open the doors to numeracy and literacy skills.
January 2015
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