Promoting a safe environment that ensures Inclusivity and Diversity within the Early Years Arena
This assignment will be demonstrating the importance of building good rapport, whether it being between the children or between the practitioners and parents, while also ensuring the setting is inclusive for every child. This assignment will also be mentioning different legislations and academic information’s and ideas that offer proof, as well as the importance of having risk assessments. This assignment will discuss the importance of children encountering a setting that is good for them to learn and build on their developments. And lastly, the assignment will highlight the practitioner’s role in encouraging a child’s well-being and development in a positive expressive setting.
The role of the practitioner.
Practitioners have many vital roles; they work closely with the EYFS and have an essential influence on a child’s learning and development because they spend a lot of time with the children and ensure they are developing holistically with a fixed routine that the children recognise every day. It is a practitioner’s duty to utilize their skills and knowledge to improve the learning conditions within their setting, making sure children always have chances to learn further. By examining children’s improvement, practitioners can comprehensively recognize areas for additional support, this means the practitioner is encouraging the child’s individual needs to express themselves, the practitioner is there to provide support, affection, a shoulder to cry on and to be a role model. All of these factors in turn promotes the child’s physical, mental and emotional health, growth and development.
One main role is to ensure that the parents are up-to-date with what is going on in their child’s learning and development. They should work alongside the parents always respecting them as they are the specialist of their children hence it is vital you learn from them on how to deal with their child. Inclusivity and Diversity can is very important in our everyday environment, hence practitioners should ensure the children feel comfortable and are involved in every activity, if not then they should make sure they incorporate and work around the child’s needs to make them feel included in the daily activities.
Practitioners have a huge effect on children, because children imitate the behaviors they see in the adults around them, not just at home but also in the setting. Regarding behaviors at home, practitioners can keep an eye on children who behave extremely aggressive towards other children and staff, for instance hitting or biting. Perhaps have a discussion with them and explain to them that these behaviors are wrong, it is crucial to take what children say seriously and listen to them, since it teaches them many skills and shows them that they are heard. By listening to them, one is allowing the child to trust them and through trust comes confiding, hence the children might share some of their worries and fears or anything concerning that is going on at home or in school that might cause them to misbehave or be sad or anxious. Practitioners spend around 4-8 hours a day with children and that’s a lot of time and the children can pick up on any positive and negative behaviors from the practitioners themselves. Albert Bandura conducted an experiment in 1961 and 1963 called the Bobo doll experiment, in this experiment he studied how children behaved after they watched an adult either acting aggressively towards a Bobo doll or not being aggressive, he found that the children that were exposed to the aggressive adult imitated the adult and were aggressive towards a bobo doll when given the chance compared to children who were not exposed to the aggressive adult. Bandura then concluded that children learn from observation of adult behavior whether it being negative or positive. Halpenny, A., & Pettersen, Jan. (2013) explains how Piaget explained the primal role of the practitioner, stating that it is to offer exciting and fun resources for the children and then observing them as they interact with each other, However many people disagree with Piaget’s suggestion, claiming that practitioners are being marginalized.
Practitioners not only protect children from physical harm, they are also protecting them from emotional harm. it is their responsibility to prevent the children from any verbal or non-verbal harassment in school, such as racism or any type of discrimination. the government put down legislations in place to protect not only children but also staff members and parents. One legislation is Race Relations Act 2000: – This act protects children and adults from any kind of national discrimination and persecution based on their race, ethnicity, origin, colour or nationality. Another legislation is Children Act 2004: – This act declares that safeguarding children is everyone’s dutiful accountability and that the interests of children are fundamental in all contemplations of safeguarding. And lastly Disability Discrimination Act 1995: – This act is also known as the DDA and it has been replaced by The Equality Act: – This act protects children and adult from any kind of discrimination and persecution based on their disability in society and in the work place. It is the practitioner’s role to prevent any kind of discrimination and providing a safe environment in which learning can take place. It is importance children encounter a safe setting that is good for them to learn and build on their developments because it helps them express themselves and feel comfortable to learn and develop their personalities.
Discuss risk management strategies including the importance of risk assessments.
Each and every child deserves the most ideal beginning in their lives, with the chance to learn and create new ideas and fully express themselves in a situation that is both sheltered and secure from any kind of harm. In order for this to happen we need to put in place risk management strategies to ensure all children are protected in an Early Years Setting. risk assessments are very importance as they tackle the practitioner's awareness of how possible risks can be prevented and if risks were to occur, the practitioners should be aware of procedures on how to deal with them in the safest way possible. How would practitioners manage risks within a setting? The placement setting had short meetings every morning before the children arrived, in these meetings they would assess all the activities they have planned for the children and discuss any potential risks and harms that would affect the children from these activities. practitioners along with the supervisor/manger would usually write down their own conclusions about the risk factors that might potentially harm the children’s health and development, as well as the staff.
The staff at the placement would make sure they followed all the regulations that had been put into place by the EYFS. It is important they examine the regulations to safeguard not only children, but also the staff members when doing activities that require hazardous substances such as paint or soap, for example the figure on the right shows an example of a risk assessment where the activity required soap and the potential risks and hazards that might occur such as children drinking the soap water.
Parker, L. (2012) explains two regulations used in every early year setting, COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) in this regulation, employers must either prevent or reduce the exposure of hazardous substance to their workers for health and safety reasons. RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995) in this regulation, employers are legally required to report detailed incidents for instance, major life threating injuries, injuries where the employee cannot work for more that 7-days (7day injuries), if a death were to occur at the work place. Risk assessments are very important as it helps prevent potential harm. When safeguarding vulnerable children, one cannot simply eliminate all potential threats but by cautious organisation, the risk can be reduced.
At the placement, an activity was planned for children using scissors and a meeting was conducted the morning before where potential risk strategies were discussed such as, using only safe well working blunt scissors, supervising the children constantly when doing the activity even after advising them about the right way to use the scissors. It was also brought up that enough staff member should be present during the activity as it would help the children if they need extra support and also more staff means more eyes to supervise the children. The activity was then done, and no child was harmed.
In conclusion
This assignment demonstrated the importance of having good relationship with children’s parents and the importance of listening and taking children seriously, the assignment also discusses diversity and inclusiveness and how to be inclusive and legislations that protect vulnerable children from discrimination. This assignment also mentioned the importance of having risk assessments, examples of risk assessment and regulations early year settings must follow when risk assessing an activity. This assignment examined the different roles of the practitioner in order to encourage a child’s well-being and development within a setting.
References
Borkett, P. (2018). Cultural Diversity and Inclusion in Early Years Education. London: Routledge.
Dobbert, D., & Mackey, Thomas X., editor. (2015). Deviance : Theories on behaviors that defy social norms.
Halpenny, A., & Pettersen, Jan. (2013). Introducing Piaget A guide for practitioners and students in early years education. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Parker, L. (2012). The early years health and safety handbook (2nd ed.). London ; New York: Routledge.
Price, D., & Tayler, Kath. (2015). LGBT Diversity and Inclusion in Early Years Education (Diversity and Inclusion in the Early Years). Taylor and Francis.
The bobo doll (Mind changers). (2007).