Monday 22 April 2013
Blog Introduction
In this blog, I have explained what each context of learning is and given varied information on them all. I've shown how different context of learning benefit different children in different ways.
The Foundation Phase
The foundation Phase is the statutory curriculum for 3-7 years. The
Foundation Phase was introduced for children aged three to four years-of-age in
September 2008 and in September 2010 for children aged five to six
years-of-age. The final stage of the Foundation Phase, for children aged six to
seven years-of-age, will be introduced in September 2011. The 2011-2012
academic year will provide the first national dataset of foundation phase
outcomes. The Foundation Phase is designed to meet the developmental needs of
all children. It is based on the principle that a developmentally appropriate
curriculum should offer sound foundations for children’s learning. It was
introduced by the Welsh Government as research evidence which shows that
children do not begin to benefit from extensive formal teaching until about the
age of six or seven. It combines what was called Early Years Education (for 3
to 5 year-olds) and Key Stage 1 (5 to 7 year-olds) of the National Curriculum.
The aim with The Foundation Phase was to make
the children become interested by being creative, imaginative and by having
fun. The Foundation Phase wanted the children learn through discovery, bring in
more structured learning, learning through doing so more activities outside,
time to repeat things to make sure all ideas concrete, small groups of children
with one teacher, reflecting on their learning and six areas of learning. The
six key points of the foundation phase are personal, social and emotional care
are to be developed through all areas of learning, emphasis on speaking and
listening skills for success in reading and writing, increased opportunity for
children to be in valued in creative an and expressive activity, focus on
observation, increase the use of outdoors as an learning environment and
balance between child initiated activities and adult prompted learning. This
frame works set out the curriculum and outcomes under seven areas of learning.
Each area of learning, educational programme sets out what children should be
taught and the outcomes. The Foundation Phase has seven areas of learning which
are personal and social development, language, literacy and communication
skills, maths development, knowledge and understanding of the world, physical
development, creative development and welsh language development.
It is still early in the implementation of the
Foundation Phase to be able to judge fully its impact on the standards being
achieved by five to six-year-olds. There is no quantifiable assessment outcomes
available to identify its effects. Schools are also implementing a range of
other initiatives and strategies designed to improve standards and teaching at
the same time. Most schools are amending their curriculum planning to meet the
requirements of the Foundation Phase for five to six-year-olds. Where there
were good plans in place for the subjects of the National Curriculum, many
schools have adapted these effectively to the requirements of the areas of
learning.
References
Literacy and the Foundation Phase, September 2011 Estyn
Learning Through Play
Learning through
play is a term used in education and psychology to describe how a child can learn to make sense of the
world around them. Through play children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.
Most practitioners agree that children learn best through play as young
children learn the most during the first 5 years of their life. Play brings
about the deepest kind of learning. Learning through play helps the children
make sense of the world around them. Piaget once said "All knowledge is tied to action",
he was a big believer that children learn better through hands on experience.
Learning through play expands certain skills such as cognitive, physical,
social and cultural developments. Learning through play develops the child's cognitive
development with problem solving, logical thinking and learning language, also
develops motor skills, co-ordination, healthy life style, balance, special
awareness and building muscles which are all physical development. The children
also build their confidence, trust, sharing, social boundaries and learn how to
build relationships. Learning through play can involve varied contexts such as dramatic
play, sand play, water play, dough and clay play, table top play, small world
play and many more. Learning through play lets the children express themselves,
explore language freely, exercises choice and making decisions.
With learning through play you can use them
for all sorts of national curriculum lessons such as for maths instead of
putting the children in front of an exercise book you can get some different
shaped containers and sand and get the children to see how much sand is in each
pot, the volume of each pot etc. For history or English the children could make
up a play for a book their reading or about the Tudors, this does not only get
them engaged in the lesson but gets them thinking and more motivated. In play
there is no such thing as fail, so this builds the children's self-esteem which
is very important at a young age. Young children naturally decide to play, they
create their own rules and goals and control materials, people and time. this
enables their confidence and self brief to thrive, which in turn adds to a
state of emotional security, the more secure the children feel, the higher
their level of cognitive development. Learning through play can be as an individual
or as a group, it is not the opposite to work as the national curriculum is embedded
in to play with the children. Frobel once said "Play
is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the
free expression of what is in a child's soul." Frobel always believe that play helped
children consider moral matters such as good, evil, right and wrong so for
example cops and robbers. At a young age play is very important for the child
as it develops varied skills that they will need in the future.
References
Bruce. T (1996) Helping young children to play, London: Sage
Ward. S (2013) Third Edition, A student's guide to educational studies Abingdon
: Routledge
Forest School
Forest school was adapted from
Sweden in the 1950's and has developed throughout other Scandinavian
countries. Forest school's only started
in Wales in 2000. Froebel , Montessori and McMillan are all believers of the
benefits of learning in the natural environment and insisted that children need
to play, to experience the space and to develop their skills. Forest school is
based outside and lets the children explore and experiment. Initially projects run from their own playing fields
allowing the children to become comfortable with an outdoor approach to
education and play whilst in familiar surroundings. It allows to base a relationship around trust and
self exploration. Once a group is established in the woodland and
routines are set up the project develops through a child led approach with
opportunities for projects being taken back to the indoor setting to be
continued.
Forest
school is learning that allows the environment to do teaching, which lets the
children explore and gain their confidence in a outside environment. It is a
different environment to the usual classroom setting where you can still learn
all of the national curriculum subjects in an unusual and inspiring
environment. Forest schools teach in a holistic way, all subjects get taught in
one, instead of them being separate. Forest school's philosophy is to encourage
and inspire the children, teach engaging and motivating tasks and to develop
the children's personal, social, health and emotional skills. The forest school
has a programme called The Seed-To-Tree Programme, this is a comprehensive six
step programme, where the children, teachers and local community all come
together and develop a community owned wild space project through the
development of local woodland. Every child that goes to the school plants a
tree, a legacy for the future.
The
six steps of The Seed-To-Tree Programme are Step 0-Nursery Nature Trail which
is an introduction step for the children in the nursery class, this introduces
the children to the importance of the woods and the nature, which gives them
time to explore and experience the outside environment. Step 1-Sowing Seeds,
which is for the reception class and year 1, which entails the children looking
for acorns, and 'test' them to find out which one has the best success rate for
growing. Step 2-Minding and Mulching, by
this time the children's trees have turned in to miniature trees, this step
focuses on how they look after the environment and growing things. Step
3-Global Kinship, this step gives them an understanding of the rainforest.
Step-4 Destination woodland, this is where the children are in their final year
and return to their trees and acorns. They listen to stories about global
warming an relate it to their trees. Step 5, the final step, Tree Rescue, this
is the emotional step where the children reflect on their journey through
forest school.
Forest
school teaches the children about personal exploration, learning self
motivation, self-esteem and confidence. It enables skills to be transferred and
developments to become well-known in to children's everyday lives. They do a
variety of activities with the children such as fires, cooking, healthy eating,
games, making rope bridges, learning about tools and practising skills and many
more.
references
Knight (2011) Forest School For
All, London: Sage
Friday 19 April 2013
Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori
After studying maths, science and
medicine in University of Rome and realised that medicine was not for her, Maria
Montessori worked with women and children for 10 years when she realised that
she had more of an interest in children with disabilities. After working with
teachers, she went back to university to study education and anthropology. Maria
Montessori began to develop her philosophy and methods in 1897, attending
courses in pedagogy at the University of Rome and reading the educational
theory of the previous two hundred years. In 1906, Montessori set up a nursery in San Lorenzo
slum; it was the first children’s house as Montessori had no money she had to
do all the work herself. From the
beginning, Montessori based her work on her observations of children and
experimentation with the environment, materials, and lessons available to them.
She frequently referred to her work as "scientific pedagogy".
Montessori’s main priority was the children’s health; she developed her own
resources which are still used today. Maria liked to encourage the children to
look after the classroom, environment and facilities that were in the
classroom. In 1912, Maria travelled around the world to teach and opened up her
first American school. In over 100 countries there are 22,000 Montessori
schools including one in Swansea called ‘The Children’s room’. Maria was also
the first teacher to advocate the importance of the first 6 years of life. Unfortunately,
Maria Montessori passed away in 1952, but her work and theories still got used.
Montessori had three six year
periods which she liked to call the sensitive periods. The absorbent mind which
is 0-6 years old, childhood which is then 6-12 years old and adolescence which
is 12-18 years old, all of these are subdivided. Montessori had key principles
that she used such as freedom to work
and move around within guidelines, more than one age group in one class,
scaffolding, children encouraged to work at their own pace, children are
observed as an individual and groups, strict rules and promoting self
discipline in Montessori environments. Maria said the environment of the
classroom was important for the children, she had all children sized furniture
so they did not feel intimidated and so it was more comfortable for them. There
was no grading system so the children did not feel categorised, the children
were allowed to explore. Still to this day, many Montessori schools design their
programs with reference to Montessori’s model of human development from her
published works, and use pedagogy, lessons, and materials introduced in teacher training derived
from courses presented by Montessori during her lifetime. One of Maria
Montessori's most famous quotes was "The greatest sign of success for a
teacher....is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did
not exist." researched from Search Quotes.
References
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