Devote uninterrupted time to babies when you can play with them. Be attentive and fully focused.
Plan time to share and reflect with parents on babies' progress and development, ensuring appropriate support is available where parents do not speak or understand English.
Where's Tyler - In a childminder's home, the childminder and the young toddler are involved in an interaction involving words, actions and touch. [transcript]
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Provide a sofa or comfy chair so that parents, practitioners and young babies can sit together.
Have special toys for babies to hold while you are preparing their food, or gathering materials for a nappy change.
Plan to have times when babies and older siblings or friends can be together.
Ensure that babies feel safe and loved even when they are not the centre of adult attention.
Talking at the table - In a childminder's home, the childminder supports a small group of children, including a baby's non-verbal communication, at a shared snack time. [transcript]
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Repeat greetings at the start and end of each session, so that young babies recognise and become familiar with these daily rituals.
Plan to have 'conversations' with young babies.
Share knowledge about languages with staff and parents and make a poster or book of greetings in all languages used within the setting and the community.
Learn lullabies that children know from home and share them with others in the setting.
Play gentle music when babies are tired.
Plan feeding times which take account of the individual cultural and feeding needs of young babies in your group.
There may be considerable variation in the way parents feed their children at home. Remember that some parents may need interpreter support.
Provide a variety of cosy places with open views for babies to see people and things beyond the baby room.
Invite parents to share food and customs from their own cultures, including British cultures.
8-20 Months
Place mirrors where babies can see their own reflection. Talk to them about what they see.
Provide choices of different vegetables and fruit at snack time.
Allow enough space for babies to move, roll, stretch and explore.
Faces in the mirror - In a nursery, a practitioner and a child look at their faces together in a mirror. [transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
Have resources including picture books and stories that focus on a range of emotions, such as 'I am happy'.
At times of transition (such as shift changes) make sure staff greet and say goodbye to babies and their carers. This helps to develop secure and trusting three-way relationships.
Share information with parents to create consistency between home and setting so that babies learn about boundaries.
Keep toys and comforters in areas that are easy for babies to locate.
Plan opportunities for talking together in quiet places both indoors and outdoors.
Work with staff, parents and children to promote an anti-discriminatory and anti-bias approach to care and education.
16-26 Months
Collect stories for, and make books about, children in the group, showing things they like to do.
Ensure resources reflect the diversity of children and adults within and beyond the setting.
Consider ways in which you provide for children with disabilities to make choices, and express preferences about their carers and activities.
Display photographs of carers, so that when young children arrive, their parents can show them who will be there to take care of them.
Regularly evaluate the way you respond to different children.
Choose books and stories in which characters show empathy for others.
Provide books which represent children's diverse backgrounds and which avoid negative stereotypes. Make photographic books about the children in the setting and encourage parents to contribute to these.
Duplicate materials and resources to reduce conflict, for example, two tricycles or two copies of the same book.
Ensure that there is time for young children to complete a self-chosen task, such as trying to put on their own shoes.
Display pictures of groups of young children, showing what they look like, and the things they like to do, eat, or play with. Provide positive images of all children including those with diverse physical characteristics, including disabilities.
Support children's understanding of difference and of empathy by using props such as Persona dolls to tell stories about diverse experiences, ensuring that negative stereotyping is avoided.
22-36 Months
Discuss with staff and parents how each child responds to activities, adults and their peers. Build on this to plan future activities and experiences for each child.
As children differ in their degree of self-assurance, plan to convey to each child that you appreciate them and their efforts.
Consult with parents about children's varying levels of confidence in different situations.
Record individual achievements which reflect significant progress for every child: one may have stepped on the slide, another may be starting to play readily with others.
Seek and exchange information with parents about young children's concerns, so that they can be reassured if they feel uncertain.
Create areas in which children can sit and chat with friends, such as a snug den.
Have agreed procedures outlining how to respond to changes in children's behaviour.
Share policies and practice with parents, ensuring an accurate two-way exchange of information through an interpreter or through translated materials, where necessary.
Allow children to pour their own drinks, serve their own food, choose a story, hold a puppet or water a plant.
Choose some stories that highlight the consequences of choices.
Provide pictures or objects representing options to support children in making and expressing choices.
Share photographs of children's families, friends, pets or favourite people.
30-50 Months
Vary activities so that children are introduced to different materials.
Plan activities that require collaboration.
Make materials easily accessible to all children, to ensure everybody can make choices.
Plan extra time for helping children in transition, such as when they move from one setting to another or between different groups in the same setting.
Provide role-play areas with a variety of resources reflecting diversity.
Provide stability in staffing and in grouping of the children.
Provide time, space and materials for children to collaborate with one another in different ways, for example, building constructions.
Provide a role-play area resourced with materials reflecting children's family lives and communities.
Set, explain and maintain clear, reasonable and consistent limits so that children can play and work feeling safe and secure.
Collaborate with children in creating explicit rules for the care of the environment.
Plan opportunities for children to take the initiative in their learning.
Provide means for children to keep track of, and share, their achievements.
Build on children's ideas to plan new experiences that present challenges.
Provide activities and opportunities for children to share experiences and knowledge from different parts of their lives with each other.
40-60+ Months
Give time for children to pursue their learning without interruption, and to return to activities.
Provide experiences and activities that are challenging but achievable.
Plan regular short periods when individuals listen to others, such as singing a short song, sharing an experience or describing something they have seen or done.
Putting the blocks away - In a nursery school, a small group of children work independently, together, and with the support of the practitioner to tidy away the resources.
[transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
Making music - In a reception class, the practitioner and a group of children work out different rhythms using percussion instruments. [transcript]
You can watch the video, via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
Make a display with the children, showing all the people who make up the 'community' of the setting.
Plan circle times when children can have an opportunity to talk about their feelings and support them by providing props, such as a sad puppet, that can be used to show how they feel.
Keep a diary with children, and refer to it from time to time to help them recall when they were happy, when they were excited, or when they felt lonely.
Collect information that helps children to understand why people do things differently from each other, and encourage children to talk about these differences.
Share stories that reflect the diversity of children's experiences.
Provide activities that involve turn-taking and sharing.
Involve children in agreeing codes of behaviour and taking responsibility for implementing them.
Make time to listen to children respectfully when they raise injustices, and involve them in finding a 'best fit' solution.
Provide books with stories about characters that follow or break rules, and the effects of their behaviour on others.
Affirm and praise positive behaviour, explaining that it makes children and adults feel happier.
Encourage children to think about issues from the viewpoint of others.
Explaining the rules - In a reception class, a practitioner supports a child to discuss what has upset her and help her understand the need for boundaries. [transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
Provide opportunities for self-chosen activities, and for choices within adult-initiated activities.
Give children opportunities to be curious, enthusiastic, engaged and tranquil, so developing a sense of inner-self and peace.
Ensure that all children are given support to participate in discussions and to be listened to.
Provide additional resources including interpreter support for children learning English as an additional language.
Acknowledgements
Disclaimer
00012-2007CDO-EN