As part of the vocational experience, I attend to work in a preschool setting, children age from 2 to 5 years old where children are prepared from next step. Explain the function and structure of the setting.
The function and structure of the setting is to provide a good atmospheric environment for them to learn and experience as much as their potential ability. It is mainly focused on personal, social, emotional, physical, language and communication, literacy, mathematics, Understanding the world and expressive arts and design. This is important aspects for the children growth, which aims to contributing in the children development and independency. It would help the children with their age and develop according to their age. An outline of the user group and their needs.
When the child first visits, the staff would help them to settle with other people. Every child would be allocated to a key person who would be able to guide the child to settle in the setting. The staff would keep the records/ assessments, ensuring any needs that the child may require.
The children are provided mid-morning fruit snacks and drink of milk, water or juice provided by the pre-school. Whereas, for the child who attends an afternoon session would have to carry a packed lunch with them, such as, sandwich and would eat their packed lunch immediately after getting in the setting. In order to meet the needs of the children, the guidance of the child would be invited to visit a session, child’s likes and activities would be discussed during the session. This is important because the setting/ staff would be able to understand the child’s understanding and preference and support them to grow as much as possible. An example would be the requirement support for the child while going to the toilet, if they would want to be accompanied by someone or alone. Links with other associated organisations and inter-agency working.
In order to have a regular health check-up, a health visitor could make a visit. This is an important role in a pre-school for the children because it helps to promote the healthy lifestyle ensuring that the children are safe and healthy to attend the setting. Also, early intervention could be taken as the staff or the parent might not be aware of their child’s condition and could be beneficial for other people within the setting.
Agency worker might substitute the people working in the setting. This is important because if the nursery assistant is absence then someone else would be able to cover all the work required in the setting. This means the children would receive same service and support everyone while running the setting safely. The job role would vary according to their qualification and experience.
Some children could be support by social worker, such as, foster career. They have the responsibilities to supervise, support, advice and guide the children as part of their development. They would be able to support the child with attending the setting, assists the child with their homework and keeping the records up-to-date.
Aspects of staff training and development
To run the setting safely and effectively, staff training and development is essential while working with the children in a pre-school to provide the best possible start in life. Behaviour management training, induction training and safeguarding are some important training required while working with the children. Behaviour management training as it would enable them to control the way they act with the children and teaches the staff about what is important and dangerous in the setting. An example would be distance with a child, kissing would not be acceptable in the setting.
Induction training is one the biggest aspect while working with the children because it would allow the staff to have the good level of understanding about their surroundings, know how to use the equipment’s within the setting and basics things, such as, fire exits would be familiarised to the staff before working with the children. This is an important part because it would enable the staff to have more knowledge and confident about the setting.
Depending on the setting, safeguarding training are mostly refreshed every year. It is important because it would protect the children from harm and abuse, which would contribute to their wellbeing and growth.
Roles and responsibilities of staff at different levels within the setting.
Staff members in the nursery would have different roles and responsibilities depending on their position. To become a pre-school deputy leader, the individual would have level 3 early year’s education and childcare qualification or equivalent. A deputy manager has the role to assist the nursery manager with curriculum planning, staffing and behaviour management. This can include supporting with professional leadership and management of the nursery and to help ensure that all the children receive the best quality service. Also, health and safety, finance, operational (day-to-day) management and staff while recruiting and induction procedure of all new staff. Similarly, the activity co-ordinator would also require to have same or equivalent level of qualification as the deputy manager. Activity co-ordinator would have the responsibility on managing the day-to-day activities to deliver the programmes in a positive, engaging and productive way. This can involve structuring the day for the children, organising play and activities for the children. This would help the staff and the service user to meet their needs and successfully be able to carry learn and grow throughout the day. Depending on the setting, a nursery assistant could be hired to work if they have achieved NVQ level 2 in early years care or an equivalent qualification. Nursery assistant are the closest to the children in the setting. They would be able to supervise and engage while the children are playing. Also, their responsibilities include attending staff meeting, keeping records up-to-date.
Policies and procedures of the organisations.
Safeguarding
When a child is any action caused by another person that cause significant damage to the child's physical, sexual or emotional and social life, this is known as child abuse. In order to protect from harm or damage, safeguarding to young people or children is provided in the early stage. In this context, we are focusing on the different types of abuse that would lead us (professional or anyone working with the children) to be suspicious of child maltreatment or abuse. There are Visual factors, behavioral changes and wider factors. In the following paragraphs, there is more explanation regarding these topics.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is important in this setting because it enable to protect all the information and details about the staff, children and anyone that comes in the setting. This an important part of policies and procedure because it would help the people to
Behaviour management policy
It is the policy that helps to ensure that the children behaviours well developed and any negative behaviour would not progress or affect any other people in the setting. Behaviours management policy would help the staff to understand and identify the behaviours that could be identify as attention seeking behaviours which could be a sign of abuse. In a nursery setting, the child might enjoy destroying others work. For instance, they might destroy the tower build by someone else which gives them the sense of power and control over other people. When they act this way, the staff member would give them the attention which could make them feel cared and understood. This could be a sign of neglect as they do not get enough attention at home from their loved one. For this reason, they might seek the attention from others in a different way by harming or troubling other people. This can be a reason for the child to misbehave around people and a way to communicate about their problems as they do not have the knowledge to translate their emotions into words. The children might try out the atrocious act on the other children. This could include abusing someone else, such as, animals. This type of aggressive and violent behaviors could be learnt from their parents which could be copied to calm them down or could be a trigger when they see a certain activates. They may lose interest in activities they once loved or lose focus on their schoolwork and their grades suffer. In order to save the children from any type of abuse, it is really important to train the staff.
Role and responsibilities of students on placement in the setting.
During the placement, my roles and responsibilities as a volunteer was to help and support the children and the staff in the setting. My roles and responsibilities were similar to a nursery assistant. Almost all the policies and procedures are applied to the volunteers, few of the examples are mentioned down below. Before working there, I had to ensure that all paperwork’s were submitted and attend the induction training. During the 4 months period, I got to understand about the psychology of the children, liaise with the professional within the setting, familiarise with the setting and talk with the parents. I had to effectively communicate with the children and allow them to grow in their fullest potential. I had to understand that the children were learning and if they misbehave then it would be my responsibility was to teach them that what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. One of my roles was I had to be on time. This is an important part during the placement because if someone is late in then that would affect the whole setting. This means that the parents might have to wait longer which could affect their work. Also, the staff working before might not be able have break off, this can affect their mood and delay the whole plan in the setting. However, being punctual would set a positive impact on the children and the setting would be able to run effectively according to the plan.
There were lots of activities that I have completed as a play worker. Play with them, reads books together, socialise, teach them what is acceptable and unacceptable. During the fire drill, I had to ensure that all the children are in the queue and present myself as a good role model. Also, ensuring that the children were listening to the instruction during the drill and help them if they had any trouble understanding the instructions. Also, it was really important that they were following the drill because it would enable them to act in the same way if a real fire situation arises. Similarly, the children were for Christmas and role playing an activity with the whole group. During this, I was encouraging and being involved with them during the activities. This was an important part to develop their social learning skills and helped to build their self-confidence through praising. Another example, when the children of the setting went out to the town, few parents were involved during the activities. During this, attendance was taken and depending on the ratio of the children, they were paired with each member of staff. Before leaving the setting, the children were helped with taking their belongings and their safety, such as, wearing their jacket as the weather was very cold outside. I had a child paired with me, during this, I had to ensure that the child was safe, interacted and learning basic skills. I believe, this was an effective experience because the children got to learn how to follow the traffic lights, respect others privacy and enthusiastic about their surrounding which would make them more understanding and aware of their surroundings. During that, I have experienced the children nurture and develop over the period of 4 months in the setting.
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