Early Years Education

Health and Social Care

Unit 16

Age Range: 6-8 years

Contents Page

Introduction on early years education Page 3

Types of learning Page 6

Techniques of learning Page 7

Assessments

Every child matters Page 9

Birth to three Page 10

Foundation Stage Page 12

National Curriculum Page 14

Topic 1 Page 18

Evaluation Page 24

Topic 2 Page 27

Evaluation Page 33

Theorists and theories Page 36

Bibliography Page 40

Appendix Page 41

Early Years Education

Early childhood is a crucial stage of life in terms of children\'s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development and of their well-being. The growth in children is both rapid and differential. A large proportion of learning and cognitive development takes place from birth to age six.

In between this age this is when children need particularly high quality care and pleasant learning experiences.

The Government\'s early years policy aims provide a broad range of services for young children, effective education requires both a relevant curriculum and practitioners who are able to apply the curriculum requirements.

Every child has the right to an educations an no child should be excluded or disadvantaged because of his or her race, culture or religion, home language, family background, special educational needs, disability, gender or ability.

To be effective, a structured early years curriculum is needed. There should be three strands: provision- for the different stages in which children develop their learning, building on what they are already able to do; Appropriate matter which matches the different levels of children\'s needs; and planned and purposeful activity which provides opportunities for teaching and learning.

A well-structured environment gives a child a stimulating start to life. It provides the ability to enable children explore, experiment, plan and make decisions for themselves, thus enabling them to learn, develop and make good progress. Children should be giving the opportunities to engage in activities.

Children learn mainly through play. They are unable to make a distinction between \'play\' and \'work\'. Children need, and should be given time to become engrossed in play, to work in depth and complete activities set by themselves and by others in which in turn they will be learning continually.

Children are classed as early years from the day they are born till they turn 8. in this age gap they will also slot in to three different educations categories, birth to three, the foundation stage and the national curriculum stage.

Children will follow the specifications and requirements set but he government in these three sectors, which will encourage the development throughout their early years

A Childs development is influenced by a number of factors and processes, which have to be taken into account when designing a curriculum for young children. These include genetics and maturation, learning and child rearing.

Children learn through a process called, 'inductive inference', where assumptions about the world are made based on known facts.

There are two recognised types of inductive inference; category based (making generalisations which assume that members of the same category share the same properties.) and similarity based (Making generalisations based on perceived similarities and differences.).

Child Rearing- Nature vs. Nurture

There is a huge debate on whether human characteristics are learnt or are they innate. We can see that what is innate comes from our genes and what is learnt come for the environment

It is unlikely that the features of our brain and behaviour are either learnt or innate. It is more likely that there is an element of each. From conception a baby is already adapting to its environment, both the innate and the environment interact from the start, this is known as interactionist view.

Genetics and Maturation

The genotype that each child acquires at the moment of conception shapes development during childhood through the processes of maturation. Maturation can be defended as genetically programmed development. Stages of development 'switch on' at fairly predictable time during childhood. The changes occur quiet rapidly, and allow a similar pattern in almost all children.

Almost all individuals have a unique genotype. This affects their aptitudes and intelligence. Certain children have noticeable cognition deflects that limit their ability to learn. Some of the conditions that lead to such deficits are strongly influences by genetics.

The Role of Learning

Learning is the main process by which children acquire behaviour and understanding from the environment. Children learn in various ways and acquire new ways in learning, as they get older.

Learning probably contributes more to human development has it does in any other species. This has enabled humans to adapt to living in environments and conditions that are far different from those present during much of human evolution.

The role of a child in learning

Children play an important and active role in their own learning. Most infants display an intense curiosity about the world. This leads them to make the most of opportunities to learn through play.

Children also make demands on parents on parents in a way that leads to learning opportunities, although without necessarily realising that this is what they are doing. The tendency of children from around 3-6 years old to ask a long series of 'what' and 'why'

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