Development tracking
Our Curriculum, Our goals and Dreams for the children
Development in children follows a pattern, almost a predictable route from coming out of the womb to adolescence. All children are amazing and unique and follow their own path at their own rate. We support this, we encourage and help each child to blossom. One of our previous clients explained it perfectly when he said;
"You (CHC) identify the childs individuality and characters, and nurture it; drawing the best you can from them in their own way without them even realising they are learning" Andy Samuels (2017)
We have a strong history of sending children into school well equipped to cope with the changes and learning they must face in this whole new world. Our support of their development is gently pushing them towards the idea of being school ready. We prefer to refer to it as life ready. Those at school, we simply reinforce what they are learning at school and continue to aid their emotional development.
We do not divide children into age defined rooms.
I am still a childminder working with 3 or more assistants at any one time. We abide by the legal requirements and best practice models for both nurseries and childminding. One of our unique traits is this mixed approach. I completely believe, mixing the children leads to older children learning consideration and compassion for younger children and those of lesser ability; and it gives the younger children huge drive to progress with their development.
The EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage (2021) statuary requirements) breaks childrens development down into seven areas, known as education programmes. Three classed as the prime areas and four further areas called the specific areas. These are Communication and language, Personal, social and emotional, Physical development, Mathematics, Literacy, Expressive arts and design, and Understanding the world. All of these are used to head towards what are known as the early learning goals, an idea of what children should be capable of and level of development they should work towards achieving.
As part of the EYFS, as a childcare provider for children under 5, we track and support development. To do this we use communication tool, Famly. We update this regularly, so we can keep a close track of how the children in our care are developing. This also allows us to share next steps with you, as families, to hopefully continue the learning at home. From these next steps we plan activities, trips, the set up of the playroom and other ways to push their progress in a positive direction. We also use this and other methods to establish if any children could benefit from extra support. We have a successful history of timely referrals leading to children getting effective intervention and support where needed. We have established good connections with a number of local providers, and professionals covering all aspects that may need attention.
To observe childrens development we also refer to a number of reference documents. Links to these appear below so you can have a little look for yourselves. We also base our understanding of their development on our collective knowledge and experience.
