Intellectual development includes developing the child’s:
• Learning
• Understanding
• Concentration
• Thinking skills and problem solving
• And also the child making progress intellectually
The intellectual needs of the children at Lodge Moor Nursery are developed through nursery rhymes and making music by playing musical instruments. Children singing nursery rhymes help to expand their vocabulary it also helps the children pronounce words better, as well as helping the children with their memory. By the children playing and making music with instruments like triangles, xylophones, and mini drum sets it expands their knowledge to recognise sounds better along with being able to remember and be more familiar with different colours and shapes of instruments. Lodge Moor Nursery entertains children with different nursery rhymes which can lead to them being happier which helps to promote their emotional needs.
In the Busy Bees room at the start of each morning the children sit down together and one of the staff will tell the children what date, day, month and weather it is as well as the season they are in. The children interact and help with this activity and it helps to develop their intellectual needs as they are learn about different numbers in the month and also learn to recognise the types of weather outside. Children learn to pronounce the words and numbers better in this activity because the staff pronounces it along with them and also help to give them more confidence in what they are saying.
Books are another way that Lodge Moor Nursery promote the intellectual needs of the children at the nursery, the nursery provide the children a certain amount of time everyday just to read books. Lodge Moor provides the children with books as it helps to improve their vocabulary because it helps them to learn new words and new ways of using the words they already know. As well as this, reading books can help to stimulate children’s imagination as they will be able to visualise scenarios mentioned in the book by reading the text .They supply children books with lots of colour and pictures; this is so that the children understand the book more as it goes along with illustrations inside the book and the bright colours helps to draw the child’s attention. The books are usually pop up books this is because it encourages their senses as they get to touch the materials inside and recognize and identify what the material feels like. The book Alphabet by Matthew Van Fleet is an example of the type of books that they provide the children at Lodge Moor. The book allows children learn their alphabet in a fun and exciting way by interacting with the book in lots of different ways. The lets the children lift flaps, pull tabs, feel textures, and even scratch and sniff while learning their alphabet. This book is a great way for a child to learn the alphabet as it is something quite important for them, it helps the child recognise letters and sounds in a fun way and also helps them with their senses because they feel different textures and scratch and sniff the book.
Language is also a way that Lodge Moor Nursery develops the intellectual needs of the children at the nursery. It is important that the children’s speech is encouraged or else their language skills would not be very good and they would not be very good at communicating with others and making friends, which also helps to develop their social skills . Staffs at Lodge Moor Nursery prevent this from happening by correcting the children’s speech if they don’t pronounce the words very well and ensure that the children don’t lose the confidence in their speech. Staffs asks the children open questions that require the children to answer with more than just an answer of yes and no, this is so that it gives the children an opportunity to say more longer sentences. This technique that the staff at Lodge Moor uses is good for the children’s intellectual needs as it helps to widen their vocabulary and improve their pronunciation and their understanding.
Lodge Moor Nursery develops the intellectual needs of children through imaginative play because they allow the children to have at least an hour of free play every day. Free play allows the children to play with any of the toys and activities that are set out for them this lets the children use imaginative play. This is where children act/pretend to be somebody else, they usually use toys and objects and dress up for the part that they are playing this type of play can also be called “role play”. Children can use imaginative play through activities like playing “mums and dads”, making dens and making cars, trains and rockets out for cardboard pieces and pretending that they are going on adventures. These types of activities help to develop children’s language skills, imagination and their confidence, learning to share and encourage their fine and gross motor skills. As well as this it also helps to develop their problem solving skills, critical thinking and their self expression .
The social and emotional needs of the children at Lodge Moor Nursery
During lunchtime the staff encourages the children to develop their social needs, this is done by teaching the children good table manners such as teaching them to say “please” and “thank you” after being given something. As well as teaching the children to be polite, staff ensures that children know how to eat their lunch properly, this is done by teaching them how to use cutlery properly. The children learning how to eat properly is important for the development of their social needs as part of learning to socialise you have to know how to eat with good manners. This is also something that could benefit them as they get older, for example they might have to eat in public with someone and if they didn’t know how to eat with good manners they won’t be able to socialise well with the other person. Lodge Moor Nursery also promote the social needs of the children by making sure that the children all sit together at lunchtime which helps to give the children an opportunity to talk to the other children at the nursery, this way the children can make friends and learn to form friendships with others. Social needs of the children at Lodge Moor Nursery are promoted outside of lunchtime time as well, this is through co-operative play, games like playing dress up helps the children’s social needs as they are taking up different roles and board games like snakes and ladders help their social needs as they learn to take turns to roll the dice and learn to share the dice as well.
Lodge Moor Nursery meets the emotional needs of the children by teaching them to learn how to control their feelings such as love, anger, hate, joy etc; and also by teaching them how to show their emotions through laughing, smiling, crying etc. It is important that children learn to control their feelings and emotions because if they don’t learn to do this it can cause them to have anger issues which results to them having low self esteem, low frustration tolerance and hiding other emotions such as hurt, sadness, loneliness, grief etc . Staff at Lodge Moor Nursery encourages the children to also make their own choices and encourages them to be independent, they do this by allowing children to make their own decisions about what games they want to play and other things such as what colours they want to use when their colouring in pictures. In addition to this they promote the emotional needs of the children through music, dance and role play games like dressing up, this way it gives the children an opportunity to express their feelings in order for them to meet their emotional needs. Most children when dropped off at the nursery feel upset or scared because they may feel that they are being abandoned from their parents as they are not familiar with the environment at Lodge Moor Nursery. In order to make sure that the children feel comfortable and secure the staff sing to them and give them comforters such as teddy bears, blankets etc. Staff at Lodge Moor does this as it helps to reduce separation anxiety in the children because it helps to calm them down and allows them to feel safe about the environment they are in, in doing this it helps them to gain confidence and they start to express themselves more better and quicker. In addition to this when children have a tantrum staff ensure that the child is carefully dealt with, as tantrums do not help to encourage their self-esteem and confidence. Children would be given a time out to help them think about what they have done and it also helps to give them time to settle down and relax, when doing this staff make sure that they do not intimate them as this can also result to them having less self-esteem and confidence.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think that Lodge Moor Nursery meet the overall needs of the children at the nursery. The nursery meets the requirements as they ensure that they have good hygiene and avoid cross contamination to ensure that the children do not get food poisoning and become ill. As well as this the children’s fine and gross motor skills are improved through the different types of play that are encouraged at the nursery. Not only does the nursery meet the needs of the children’s health and physical needs it also meets the intellectual needs of the children as they are taught new vocabulary and taught how to pronounce words better. Children are taught to show their emotions and feelings and learn how to control them properly; additionally the children are taught good manners which are a good life skill for any child to learn.
The role of informal carers
Informal carers are people who are not professionally qualified to look after children and are often not paid to take care of them. 'Informal childcare' refers to childcare provided by grandparents, other relatives, friends and neighbours . For example, two forms of informal carers are grandparents and friends of the parents.
Grandparents support the needs of the child as they offer different types of roles to look after the child. For instance grandparents would have the experience of having a child before so they would know how to raise a child properly. They can also help to collect the child from nursery and this could impact the child as they are someone they can trust and know really well so the child would feel safe in their care. In addition to this grandparents could also take the child to outings to places like the park, this gives the child a positive impact as it helps to encourage the child’s physical develop as they would be using their motor skills. Grandparents can also do fun activities such as recreational activities like baking and arts and crafts with the child as it would enjoyable and help to develop a close bond and relationship. Since the child is their grandchild they would ensure that they give them affectionate care and love which is something that a nursery staff could not do as they wouldn’t feel that towards the child unlike somebody that was related to the child. Emotionally grandparents can help to support the needs of the child as they can offer them emotional support like reassurance and praise; they would make sure that they don’t lower their confidence or self-esteem and ensure that they don’t spoil or indulge their grandchild. As grandparents have the experience of having children they would know what sort of discipline to give the child so that they don’t ruin the relationship or bond with them, as well as this they would know how to not scare the child when telling them off.
Friends of parents can help to collect the child from the nursery as they may even have their own child to collect, the child could go to the friend’s house and play with their child as it increases their social needs because they would be interacting with each other and developing their language skills. However friends of the parents can be more unreliable than a family member as they are more likely to desert you, but some parents feel that their friends are someone that they can trust and leave their child with. On the other hand the friend may not have the same amount of love and affection as the grandparents have towards the child and may abuse them. This can affect the child’s emotional development as they may feel scared and it could lead to lowering their confidence and self-esteem. Friends of the parents can also help to support the parents and share experiences and knowledge about the upbringing of children and give advice and listen to their concerns. Because the friends may not have the same amount of care and love for the child as other family members of the child they may not care about the way they discipline the child and not care about the relationship or bond between them both. This may make the child feel scared and frightened and lead to a lack of trust between the parent and friend as it would be harder to forgive friends than grandparents or family as you wouldn’t have a stronger relationship with them.
Services that support and meet the needs of children
Statutory services are services funded and supported by the government such as services like hospitals, dentists, GP’s, health visitors. These types of services are from the National Health Service (NHS) which provides many different services that help to support families and children to unsure that they are fit and healthy.
Health services How they meet the needs of children
Health visitor A health visitor is someone who is qualified as a registered nurse, midwife, sick children’s nurse or a psychiatric nurse with qualifications in community care, such as child heath, heath promotion and education. They work with families to give children under the age of five the best possible start in life. A health visitor’s role is to access parenting skills, the family and home situation and the development needs of the child’s . As well as this they give beneficial advice to the child’s parents about the child’s growth and development, they also offer mother’s advice on breastfeeding and help on how to bath the baby safely, they do this by demonstrating it to the parents. Also they offer advice on healthy eating and the types of food that the child should have, but more importantly they give parenting support to couples looking after children and even to single parents. A health visitor meets the needs of children as they make sure that the child is not being physically abused or living in a unclean, dirty environment, they do this by coming to the child’s home unannounced so they can observe how the parents deal with the child and how they meet the requirements of looking after a child. They check the child and see if they have any marks or bruises as well as checking the house and ensuring that the house is clean and safe for a child to live in. If the parents or carers don’t do these things properly the health visitor can make sure that the child is taken in care. Another way that a health visitor meets the needs of children is by ensuring that the child does not have any illnesses, infections or any physical problems such as a loss in the child’s hearing or in their sight. How often a child is seen by their health visitor depends on the general wellbeing of the child and how frequently the mum chooses to see them for advice . What health visitors do that other services don’t do is that they go to the family’s house and inspect the house and ensure that they don’t have dangerous items that could lead to an accident or could make the child ill or sick.
GP A GP is a general practitioner, they are the first point of contact and everyone who lives in the UK is entitled to the service of a GP. The role of a GP is to look after the health of the local community and deal with different health problems. GP’s should be able to recognise certain health problems in patients so that when patients consult the GP with a problem it is the GP’s role to give them advice on how to get better. They also give out vaccinations to lower the chance of someone getting ill, they remind you to take these vaccinations by sending the patient a letter so that the patient dose not forget. This could be done by prescribing the patient with medicine, a change in the patient’s routine or diet, GP’s can also recommend the patient to a professional like a doctor. GP’s treat patients with illnesses such as common colds, athlete’s foot or a mental illness. Local GP surgeries provide a wide range of family health services, including: advice on health problems, vaccinations, examinations and treatment, prescriptions for medicines, referrals to other health services and social services . GP’s meet the needs of children as they ensure that children stay healthy by prescribing them with the right medicine as well as this they give parents advice on making sure that their child has a healthy lifestyle and good physical and mental health. What GP’s do that other services don’t do is that they prescribe the right medicine for the child to take and offer vaccinations to decrease the chance of them getting ill.
Dentist A dentist is someone who is qualified to help prevent problems affecting the mouth and teeth. The role of a dentist is to ensure that their patients avoid dental diseases that could lead to mouth cancer which is also known as oral cancer. Another role of a dentist is that they help patients who are born with dental abnormalities and also people who may have been in accident that resolved to them injuring their mouth or teeth. Dentists also give advice on what to eat, brushing, flossing, the use of fluorides and other help on dental care, also they remove tooth decay, fill cavities, examine x-rays, place protective plastic sealants on children’s teeth, straighten teeth and repair fractured teeth . Dentists meet the needs of children as they help prevent cavities and tooth decay and make sure that their teeth are clean so that in the future they wouldn’t have dental issues. They do this so they can chew food easily, learn to speak properly which helps with their intellectual development and smile with confidence which helps to increase their emotional development .