Work Matters: Early Years Professionals - Case studies
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Joanne Chatburn is a senior lecturer from Edge Hill University. She explains how she observed Early Years Professional students on the full training pathway work towards evidencing an aspect of S13: Make effective personalised provision for the children they work with.
An aspect of my role in my first year of working as placement co-ordinator for the EYPS team was to observe and support the students in placement. The full-time students have a particularly difficult job - attending a setting for the first time, building relationships that will enable them to support the work of a team, and developing an area of change or innovation.
Many of our partner settings have identified ideas for development that may suit a student with only a limited number of weeks to complete their placement. They negotiate with the student the role and outcomes they wish the activity to achieve for their provision. Alternatively, some students identify their own ideas, then successfully negotiate and build relationships which enable them to develop and lead new initiatives.
I observed two students making personalised provision for children who had recently moved from another country with English as an additional language (EAL).
One student established that a child with EAL used non-verbal communication signals and certain hand gestures to try to connect with other children and staff. The student developed a personalised approach in the setting by adopting the simple signing technique to encourage interaction. She shared these observations with other children and staff within the room and encouraged them to embrace a similar practice.
The other student spoke the same language as the child. She communicated with the child's family and collated personal information to supplement the expertise of the team working with the child. She also developed materials in a simple book to link with key words from the child's language.
The two cases illustrate how encouraging the pedagogical grounding of an EYP trainee can influence their ability to enrich the individual experience of children.
