Posts tagged 'Nurseries'

Facilitating play can be a complex role for Early Years practitioners. Early Years expert, Emma Davis, explores the importance of child-led play and how to strike a balance between the role of observer and facilitator.

Introducing loose parts play into a setting can be a hugely empowering and valuable experience.  As practitioners, our role is to facilitate an enabling and inspiring environment for children and incorporating loose parts into our provision can help us to achieve this.

What better way to celebrate Children’s Art Week than by taking a look at famous artists from around the world and using their style to inspire young children in their art and craft activities.

Often, January is a time for reflection and making plans. Time for Nurseries consider the coming year, setting objectives and mapping out the spring and summer terms.  However, things are much different this year, making it more of a challenge to look ahead.  It is difficult to predict what might be happening next month, let alone the remainder of the year. This can make it challenging for nurseries to think ahead, in a time which is still incredibly uncertain.  There is no way of knowing if COVID will impact further on the Early Years sector and how.  Although the current circumstances means it will be difficult to plan, it’s still important to reflect on our provision and practice and use this to feed into the coming months. 

COVID has not only changed the way our settings and schools are run, but it has also impacted on the way practitioners and teachers are learning. Professional development opportunities have become fewer and fewer in recent years due to stagnant funding rates, however, COVID has impacted on this further.

“What a difference there is between playthings that leave as much
as possible to the power of imagination and giving finished toys that
leave nothing for the child’s own inner activity”. - Rudolf Steiner

What a year it’s been! No one could have predicted the bizarreness this year has brought – school and setting closures, ‘bubbles’ of children, furloughed staff, Zoom teaching and singing Happy Birthday whilst washing our hands. You couldn’t have made it up! However, we’ve now had to accept that we’re not moving on from life after COVID, but making preparations to live with it, at least for the foreseeable future.

This unprecedented challenge has called for all us to think in ways we just aren’t used to. As lockdown measures were eased and children gradually returned to settings, there was a lot of uncertainty and guidance was sometimes difficult to interpret, leaving many having to work out solutions for themselves or feeling they needed to plan without the full picture.

Transition to nursery, reception or Year 1 can prove challenging for all involved at the best of times, let alone during an unforeseen pandemic! COVID-19 has bought many challenges, but many of us are now starting to think about September: How can we welcome new starters or returning children back to our setting, in a way that is supportive to their well-being? We know that the way in which first transitions are handled can have a serious impact on a child’s future ability to cope with change, both in the short and long term – so it’s important to get it right whilst trying our best to keep them safe.

In the past two weeks, children in Early Years have been making their way back to settings in light of recent government announcements around easing the lockdown.

However, official statistics published by the Department for Education suggest that families still think it’s too soon. Just 10% of the usual number of children are attending settings.