Children as learners

C7 Curriculum responsive

Criteria

The service curriculum is inclusive, and responsive to children as confident and competent learners. Children’s preferences are respected, and they are involved in decisions about their learning experiences.

Rationale/intent

Criterion is a means of ensuring that the service curriculum is consistent with the gazetted curriculum framework.

Guidance

A service curriculum that is inclusive ensures all children know that the early childhood service they attend is a place where they belong and where they feel valued for who they are.

The service curriculum treats all children, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity and abilities, as competent and confident learners who are active participants in their own learning. Supportive, responsive educators guide children to make choices in, and contribute to the planning of, the programme in an early childhood service.

The curriculum will enable children with special health and/or educational needs to be actively engaged in learning with and alongside the other children in the service.

Practice

Examples of what this might look like in practice:

• Children participate in decisions that affect them, choosing their own challenges and learning opportunities from a range of resources and equipment.
• Educators respect children’s choices and accept them wherever possible.
• The activity room is set up so that children can independently access equipment and resources.
• A wide range of learning experiences are offered, from which children can choose familiar activities or try new challenges.
• Educators demonstrate in practice that they regard each child as competent and assist children to make choices by giving them the information they need to make informed decisions.
• Children with special health and/or educational needs are fully engaged in the programme.
• Children interact positively with other children of different ages, backgrounds, gender, abilities and/or ethnic groups.

Things to consider

• How do the tools/resources in your service curriculum reflect what parents and whānau value as learning for their children?
• How do you explain to others what real choice for children is? Who answers this question?
• How do we explain to others our expectations and understanding in relation to children’s learning and development?
• How does the way our day is set up influence the experiences for children? How are children empowered to influence how the day is organised?
• Where do the notions of child-centred, child-initiated, and child-directed learning fit into all of this?
• How do we support and enable children who are non-verbal to make choices within our programme?
• How does our service curriculum include strategies to fully include all children?

C8 Language-rich environment

Criteria

The service curriculum provides a language-rich environment that supports children’s learning.

Rationale/intent

This criterion is a means of ensuring that the service curriculum is consistent with the prescribed curriculum framework.

Guidance

Language is a vital part of communication and cultural transmission. If children are competent communicators, they are well-placed to enjoy their relationships with others and to be successful learners. Language does not consist only of words, sentences, and stories though: it includes the language of images, art, dance, drama, mathematics, technology, movement, rhythm, print and music.

The ‘languages’ used in the environment will depend on the make-up of the children and families that attend, and the community that the service serves – for example a language-rich environment in an infant and toddler setting may look, feel and sound different from a setting for older children.

In early childhood services in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is important that educators understand the significance of te reo Māori and that it is heard, seen and used throughout the day, integrated throughout the service curriculum.

All children will enter an early childhood service with a first language. Sometimes this language is different to the language or languages used in the centre. It is important that educators work in collaboration with the parents/whānau of the child to ensure that the child’s first language is integrated into the service curriculum in real and meaningful ways.

Practice

Examples of what this might look like in practice:

• The service curriculum is print-focused:
  • educators encourage print-awareness in children’s activities
  • have a lot of printed material visible around the centre, at children’s eye-level or just above and
  • offer children a range of readily accessible books.
• The first language of each child that attends the service is represented in the environment – seen and heard – particularly the key words and phrases that the child relies upon for communication.
• Children and educators use their first languages and extend their vocabularies in both te reo Māori and English.
• Children use a variety of ways to communicate, including non-verbal communication through art, movement and music.
• Educators actively listen to and respond to all forms of communication from children.
• Educators promote stories, songs, dance, and music from a variety of cultures.

Things to consider

• What languages are ‘spoken’ here?
• How do our wider relationships with colleagues, parents, and the community influence our provision of a language-rich environment? What tools and strategies do we have to support the provision of a language-rich environment?
• How do we evaluate how our level of engagement with children and families impacts on learning outcomes for children?
• What kinds of review practices happen within the language used in engagement with children?
• How do we reflect on or monitor the language we use with children, families and each other?
• How do the language experiences provided for children reflect the families’ wishes, beliefs and aspirations?
• How do we access content knowledge and technical language to support and extend children’s thinking?
• What role does a language-rich environment play in the transmission of culture?
• What happens at our place that reflects the importance of language/learning?
• How would we explain to others how children’s learning is supported through a language-rich environment?
• Do we notice who talks, when they talk, and what they say? Do we notice who does not talk, and why?
• How are the languages and symbols of children’s own and other cultures promoted and protected?
• How can our environment support children’s thinking and language?

C9 Range of experiences

Criteria

The service curriculum provides children with a range of experiences and opportunities to enhance and extend their learning and development – individually and in groups.

Rationale/intent

This criterion is a means of ensuring that the service curriculum is consistent with the prescribed curriculum framework.

Guidance

The range of experiences and opportunities provided to enhance children’s learning and development will be heavily influenced by the outcomes of assessment, planning, and evaluation practices. Along with providing a range of resources and equipment, extending children’s learning and development involves using these in purposeful and meaningful ways, relevant to the children’s lives.

Resources take many forms and will include people, places and things. The resources provided to support the service curriculum should reflect the service’s philosophy of learning and will be responsive to the preferences of children, their families, the staff, and community. In a hospital setting resources may be provided in a shared activity area for those children whose health allows it. Curriculum experiences for children who are unable to access this space will need to be flexible to enable participation.

The experiences and opportunities available should:

• enable children to make choices about their learning
• take the form of individual or group learning
• happen in different environments and
• offer challenge and familiarity.

Through their interactions with children, educators have a key role in extending children’s learning and development. They create opportunities for children to expand their thinking and learning within friendly, nurturing relationships.

Practice

Examples of what this might look like in practice:

• Educators are familiar with individual children’s interests and strengths and provide appropriate experiences to extend them.
• Children have appropriate access to varied environments that they can explore and investigate.
• Equipment can be used in a variety of different ways.
• Children are actively engaged in investigation and sustained exploration.
• The service curriculum reflects the holistic way that children learn.
• Educators frequently join in children’s activities, offer materials, information or encouragement to facilitate play and learning around a particular subject.

Things to consider

• Are there enough resources to promote children’s choices for challenge, revisiting, exploration, solitary and group play?
• How is our environment set up? Who makes the decisions about how our environment is set up? Where does assessment for learning figure in this?
• How are children and their whānau | families engaged with regarding the range of experiences and opportunities provided?
• How do our teaching practices stimulate children’s thinking, and reflect the holistic way children learn and grow?
• Is our environment used in purposeful and meaningful ways?
• Is the environment arranged in a way that allows choice and opportunities for independence and interdependence?

C10 Behaviour management

Criteria

The service curriculum supports children’s developing social competence and understanding of appropriate behaviour.

Rationale/intent

This criterion recognises the importance of children’s social confidence in establishing and maintaining relationships with other children and adults.

Guidance

As children learn to make sense of their world and develop working theories, they develop an understanding of themselves in social contexts including the early childhood service.

What is viewed as social competence and appropriate behaviour may vary from setting to setting. In a hospital it will depend on the values that families, educators, and the hospital hold. It is therefore vital that educators, parents, the medical staff and children share with each other their understandings of social competence.

The environment, our expectations, and our teaching practices will be strong indicators of what we consider to be socially appropriate and competent behaviours.

A service curriculum that supports social competence and understanding of appropriate behaviour will provide ongoing opportunities within flexible settings for children to practise through actions, words and behaviours their growing development.

Practice

Examples of what this might look like in practice:

• Educators emphasise what to do, rather than what not to do, in explanations and instructions.
• There are enough resources to promote children’s choices for challenge, revisiting, exploration, solitary and group play.
• Relationships and interactions in the service engender respect between children, and between children and educators.
• Educators use a range of conversations skills to encourage children to talk and think about relationships and the consequences of different responses to a given situation or problem.
• Children know the limits and boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
• Children are only offered genuine choice.
• The service curriculum provides opportunities to discuss and negotiate rights, fairness and justice with adults.

Things to consider

• What are the limits and boundaries in our service? How are these negotiated and shared with children and their families?
• What are our expectations of the range of behaviours children will demonstrate in the early years and in stressful situations?
• How does the structure of our staffing support the development of children’s social competence?
• What is my image of children? What is my team’s image of children?
• How do we evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching strategies in relation to the development of children’s social competence?
• How do my own personal values impact on, and influence my teaching practice?
• How do our routines and rituals support children’s developing social competence?
• How do we manage challenging behaviours in respectful and dignified ways?