What's inside the Book?
12. Child Development and Education
Childminders play an important role in promoting the development and education of the children they care for. This section explains how different activities support children's development and how to plan a curriculum (including examples) and monitor children's progress. It includes information on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) brought in during September 2007.
Contents
- Child Development
- Developmental Stages
- Factors Affecting Growth and Development
- What Helps Growth and Development?
- What Hinders Growth and Development?
- Gross Motor Skills
- Fine Manipulative Skills
- Intellectual Development
- Sensory Development
- The Curriculum
- Other Considerations
- Types of Play
- Learning Through Play
- Basic Concepts
- Example Activities and their Value
- Activity Planning
- Curriculum Planning
- Short Term Plans
- Individual Activity Plan
- Medium Term Plan
- Long Term Plan
- Themes
- Individual Education Plan
- Recording Children's Progress
- Child Profiles
- Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
- Birth to Three
- Foundation Stage/Phase & EYFS
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Well Being
- Language, Communication and Literacy Development
- Mathematical Development, Early Mathematical Experiences
- Knowledge and Understanding of the World, The World Around Us
- Physical Development & Movement
- Creative Development/Expressive and Aesthetic Development/Arts
A Quote from this Chapter:
Curriculum Planning for Childminders
If you are receiving the Nursery Education Grant for three and four year olds, working with the EYFS, or are inspected for children's learning and development by Ofsted or similar your curriculum will also need to contain a wide range of opportunities, activities and experiences to cover the Early Learning Goals. You may find it helpful to begin by identifying what the children should learn and how they will be able to learn. You will also have to consider health and safety issues when devising your plans and to ensure your plan will provide an anti-bias curriculum.
You will find your routines with the children and collecting children from school, or nursery are going to affect your planning of activities and you will need to take this into account when devising your plans. Your plans should be used as guidelines and not rules so that flexibility to include spontaneous events and interests can be explored.
When devising your long, medium and short term plans you can consider what a Childminding Inspector, your Network Coordinator or Childminding Development worker will be looking for. They will be looking at your overall planning for your care and educational programme and how you are covering each area of the early years curriculum, relevant to your region, and the progress a child is making. They will want to satisfy themselves that you are making the best use of your equipment and resources in your planning and that activities and opportunities included are appropriate to the age of the children. If you are working in England they will also be looking to ensure the principles of the EYFS are embedded in your practice.
Both the childminding regulator and your network coordinator if applicable will also be looking at the plans to ensure you are using a range of teaching methods e.g. structured learning and freeplay. Plus, you can also demonstrate through your planning an equality of access and opportunity and the involvement of parents where possible.
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