Comparison between Early Childhood Care Facilities - Coursework Example

Comparison between Early Childhood Care facilities. Three settings were explored by the for the purposes of comparing and contrasting the quality of service provision in these early year’s settings. The first setting visited was a primary school nursery in London. This nursery formed part of a state primary school and included children aged from 3 to five years. The second early year’s setting visited was a Sure Start Children’s Centre in the borough of Haringey in London which catered for children from 3 months to five years. The last early year’s setting visited was a private Montessori nursery in central London. The nursery was one of eight branches in London area and caterers for children age between 3 months to 5 years. The setting has an average of 100 children that attend on a daily bases and employed over 30 staff witch hold different qualifications. This paper aims to compare and contrast the quality of service provision in the above three early year’s settings within the context of early years development of government policies, historical and current social policies in relation to children’s well-being which includes their health, development and learning. The paper will also provide an in depth critique and evaluation of the three settings in line with OFSTED standards, philosophical underpinnings of each setting and the quality of care and education provided at the settings. Historical and Policy Development of Early Years Child Care Over a hundred years ago, England was struggling to cope with the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Population was increasing rapidly and majority of this increase in population occurred in London, specifically the eastern part of London. Disease, unemployment, poverty and social and economic downturn was rife in England around the middle of the nineteenth century and majority of the children did not live till their fifth birthdays. With the outbreak of cholera and the Poor Law which subscribed that destitute families could only seek refuge at the workhouse, many families were driven to the streets and some were even maimed in order for them to make money as beggars. During the Victorian era, poverty was seen as self-inflicted and as a result of laziness or vice, and organizations had discriminatory practices to exclude children based on race, disability and even those children that were born out of wedlock were excluded from basic rights such as education and child care. As the century progressed, there were more homeless families, increase in poverty and unemployment and apart from a few private charity organizations like Barnardo’s, there was no place for destitute children to go for education or care. In the 1850s, legislation allowed children to be sent from the workhouse to Canada to work as farm laborers, or domestic servants. This continued even after the World War up until 1925 when Canada barred children being migrated to their country due to the ill-effects on children’s well-being and little to no supervision or safeguarding in place for such children. It was around the 1940s and the 1950s that childcare began to change and with the publication of a report titled the Curtis Report in 1946, attention began to be paid to the accommodation, care, safeguarding and education of young children, and this came at a time when the Second World War had just ended and there were a large number of children who were orphaned as a consequence of the war. This report further set a foundation for the Children Act of 1948 which made it mandatory for local authorities to take in and look after homeless children and introduced a system of fostering and adoption for those children who could not be looked after by family or relatives. There was another shift in childcare practices in the 1960s and the introduction of the Children and Young Persons Act of 1963 encouraged local authorities to help and support families to look after their own children rather than take them into the care of the state. This change continued in the 1970s and the Local Authority Social Services Act (1970) introduced social services departments which provided help and support to families facing difficulties and placed children’s welfare at the heart of their service (Veum & Philip, 1991). Policies affecting child care in the early years has undergone a massive upheaval and rapid development since the 1990s. Before this period, government tended to intervene much less in the child care provision and this was mostly viewed as a matter which was private and it was up to the parents to decide and to fund such provision. In the early 1990s, the government took some small steps of intervening in the child care provision. Among these steps was the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSE, 1992) which was also revised in 1999 and his impacted the early years child care settings due to defining the duties of employers to their staff. Risk assessments of health and safety for both staff and children were also made mandatory. Further to this, the Medicines Act (DoH, 1996) further protected children and required that all medicines given to children needed to be prescribed by a doctor and that parental consent needed to be obtained before administration of any medicine to children. Again, the impact on early years’ settings included training for staff in order to administer medicines such as the epi-pen for allergic reactions and child care settings needed to have a system in place to inquire about medical health of all children and obtain appropriate consent forms and medicines from the parents. This intervention was further enhanced by the introduction of the National Childcare Strategy in 1998 (DWP, 1998). With this, working tax credits, free nursery places and regulation by Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), were some of the key initiatives which were introduced (Butt, Godard, La Valle, 2007). With the introduction of the Children Act 2004 which derived from the green paper Every Child Matters, identified and outlines five main outcomes for children which needed to be the aim of all early years’ settings. These included being healthy, safe from harm, enjoyment as well as progress, contributions of a positive nature and future achievement of economic well-being. With this act, early years’ settings needed to implement in-house policies which reflected the aims of the act and implement guidelines in order to achieve these aims. Staff needed to be trained and knowledgeable about the policy changes and its effect on their practice and service provision. The Childcare Act 2006 introduced the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) as a national curriculum for children in the early years and provided guidelines and a statutory framework in relation to children’s learning and development. Again, early years’ setting needed to train their staff according to the EYFS guidelines, and to mold their setting in order to meet the EYFS requirements set forth in the act. Furthermore, the introduction of the Equalities Act (HMRC, 2010) which replaced the anti-discrimination laws and provided early years ‘s settings with guidelines and a statutory framework to support children and staff with disabilities, special education needs and to challenge any discrimination in their practice. In respect to the quality of childcare provision, it was not until the 1990s that this rose at the top place and was given higher priority in the policy agenda. The impetus for this was derived from the innovative introduction of the Early Start intervention project from the Department of Education (1994). This system was complimentary to the existing primary school system of the time and aimed to introduce the development of preschool classes especially for disadvantaged children (Kellaghan & Greaney, 1993). An additional incentive provided by the European Union (EU) which was aimed at providing early childhood training to staff and reviewing current services, gave the opportunity for early years settings to join together and identify various unfulfilled requirements especially related to staff training and provision of the quality of childcare services (OMNA, 2000). The year 2013 saw some more changes from a policy front in the provision of childcare with two main policy documents including More Great Childcare (DfE, 2013) and More Affordable Childcare (HM Government, 2013). Both these documents outlined the childcare strategy and identified ways to raise the quality of childcare provision with a view of improving child development, learning and children’s outcomes. Workforce skills as well as staff training were also identified as lacking and strategies introduced in order to offset this lack and replace it with more qualified staff. A Comparison of Three Early Years’ Settings The Montessori Nursery caters for children age 3 months to five years. The setting runs from 7.30am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday and operates all year round expect bank holidays. Parents that wish to send their children to this institution have to pay for accessing these services. The fees are based upon the age of the child as well as their attendance level. The establishment also complies with the free state-backed fifteen hours access program. Primary School Nurseries are State funded, offering each child from the age of three until five years, fifteen hours free placement, and are designed to prepare children from the age of 3 years until they are ‘rising five’ for primary school education. Unlike the Montessori nursery the primary school nursery is open term time only and runs from 9-3.30 Monday to Friday. Similar to the primary school nursery the Sure Start Children center is government funded and is open term time only. However, the opening hours of the Sure Start Children Centre deifier from the primary school. In relation to the curriculum, all three nurseries followed the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and the key principles guiding the curriculum were implemented. These included viewing the child as unique, building and enhancing positive relationships, providing an enabling environment resulting in appropriate learning and development of a child. In respect to this, it was noted that the private Montessori setting followed the EYFS in parallel to the teachings of Maria Montessori and they prepared reports for the children based on the EYFS assessment standards. In all three nurseries, the children were assessed on personal, social and emotional development, physical development, their level of communication and language skills, literacy, mathematics, an awareness of the world, and expressive arts and designs. The layout of the classroom in the Montessori setting is such that it encourages children to explore and develop all areas of the curriculum, both physically and mentally, from details such that the shelving is child height, enabling all children to have independent access to materials as and when appropriate. The Montessori establishment has 3 baby rooms 2 toddler rooms and 1 preschool room. The setting employees Montessori teachers as well as early years practitioners that hold different qualifications in early years starting from level 2 going up to early years teachers states. The Manager of the setting holds an early years foundation degree. She is responsible of the day to day running of the nursery and is also the safeguarding coordinator. The Deputy Manager holds a diploma in Montessori education and works under the direction of the manager. The deputy manager is responsible to promote the aims and objectives of the nursery setting and also works as the SEN Coordinator. Within the primary school nursery The teacher’s role was that of constantly changing the environment in different and exciting ways so as to let the child explore and fulfil their potentials, cognitively, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The teacher acts as an ‘interpreter’ rather than a ‘controller’, a person who helps the child develop their inner potential as opposed to controlling their behavior. Since then the Montessori Movement has rapidly spread across the globe. The Montessori Nursery has a specific prescribed setting which promotes independence and consists of a wide range of Montessori materials which children have easy access to throughout the day. The classroom layout is such that it encourages children to explore and develop all areas of the curriculum, both physically and mentally, from details such that the shelving is child height, enabling all children to have independent access to materials as and when appropriate. Some of the materials have been specifically structured with particular ways of use, and others include self-correcting materials enabling the children to identify their own errors and correct them. The theory of Montessori education is one which focusses on five specific domains of learning – practical life; sensorial development; language skills; mathematical skills; and cultural education. Comparison of the three early childhood institutions. A normal primary school follows a specific schedule and it is wrong to deviate from this however in an institution like Montessori, the young learners are given some freedom to choose what they want to do and they have a wide variety to pick from. Unlike many other child care facilities the parents have to pay so that their children can access this facilities. The amount of money that is paid by the parent so that the child or children can access the facilities normally varies with the level of attendance and as well as the age of the child. Also Montessori has a free fifteen hours that is paid for by the state. Age is a very important matter when dealing with children. This is especially so if they are the very young children. Part of the reason is because at very young and tender age the psychology of a child is like molten wax. Any new behavior can easily be copied and made a permanent part of the child’s psychology. This also goes to say with incidents that are scary or things that are exposed to the child when he/she is still young and immature (Simon & Tzur, n.d.). That is why learning institutions for the very young and growing toddlers should be very keen on the matter of age. As for Montessori Nursery its youngest age limit is 3 months (Henniger, 2010). This means that in such an institution, there are children present and some of them are still weaning. The oldest age limit for Montessori Nursery five years old. This is the age that a child can be able to fend for him or herself. It is also at this age that the child begins to understand him/herself. As for Primary Nurseries, the minimum entry age for a child is 3years of age. At the age of three years a child can be able to tell what bothers him/her and also what he/she may want in the near future. At this age also, it is expected to be able to feed him or herself. This means that at Primary School Nurseries the personnel present are not very specialized on matters of a new born babies. It can also be said that the personnel at the Primary School Nurseries have more focus to the quality of education they offer there to the children than the minor issues of discomfort that the child may experience. This is partly because the children are old enough to deal with this minor issues. The maximum age of making use of the facility is 5 years. When the child exceeds this age except for special circumstances, the parents are advised to seek a similar kind of services elsewhere. Sure Start Children Center too has a similar arrival and departure time of children similar to that of Primary Nurseries. All the above institutions work every single day of the week or calendar unless it’s a banking holiday. In European during the reign of Victoria, people who lacked jobs or were languishing in poverty were considered to be in that state because of their own design. Hence poverty and laziness were considered to be a taboo and anyone who did not have food had the potential to get some if he/she worked hard enough. It is also during the 17th century that there was a sudden increase in the number of new born babies. The respective government that was in power was having a hard time dealing with cases of robbery and burglary that were brought about street children. Many of this children were orphaned their parents did not have the capability to educated them. It was during those times there was a lot of discrimination of children in early childhood institutions. Some of them include; a child that is born out of wedlock, disability, race and financial background of the parent. The children would end up working in factory and other large scale production facilities. In this facilities the welfare of the children was not being catered for by the respective employees. It is said that the situation of large number of children got so worse that the children would be sent to Canada and be a cheap source of labor (Humphreys, 2015). However, this did not last for a long period. It is so because the Canadian government stopped the shipping of children to her. The rejection of such an offer was mainly because the children who would be sent to Canada would have no one to look after them. There conditions at this company and were not good for children because of the risky environment that the child operated. Before the respective governments started to construct early childhood development facilities that could also function as baby day care. The early childhood facilities that were government funded include Sure Start Children Center and Primary School Nurseries. As for Montessori nursery, the issue is different since, for one to access any of its services, one has to pay. When it comes to early childhood education, matter of curriculum are very sensitive and delicate. Child psychology is very delicate and has to be taken with great care (Smith, n.d.). The children of a nation are the same nation’s future leaders. This is a common adage in politics and academics however much it is misused or abused, it is still true. And for this same reason every nation has to develop keen interest in the welfare of its future leaders (Barnett, 1995). Some of the factors that tend to affect children in most nation of the world are; health issues such as malnutrition and obesity. The other major issue that affects the child of any nation whether mighty of weak is the quality of education. Any small error could easy cause an irreparable damage or lead to a society facing major social issues. That is why there are bodies that are in place checking to ensure that a suitable curriculum is in place in any educational facility for children. This inspection is only present to public institution as for private educational institution, one is free to teach his or her child as he/she wishes to. It is because of this that both three early childhood facility adhere and follow Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. Part of the requirement of Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is that the children be tested and tried on various aspects (Piaget, 1997). It includes: physical development, level of communication, emotional development, social, language skills, mathematics, expressive art, personal and expressive designs (Vag, 1975). The early childhood facilities have layouts that motivate the young learners to venture and realize growth in every section of the curriculum that has been put in place by Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. The exploration is both mentally and physically, a suitable example is the height of shelves which are low enough to allow the children reach its top and access the various tools and materials whenever they need to. This however could be undoing in its own way. Because sometimes the personnel may keep materials that is dangerous to the children in such shelves that can be reached by the children. Such an action may cause loss of life, property or even injury to the your and eager mind. Evolution of Child Care. The child care requirements have changed over time so as to take good care of the children. Various laws have been passed this includes: The children’s charter which allowed the state to intervene on matters about children. This was in 1889. The children’s charter was amended and children were allowed to give evidence in court. 1894. Children’s act of 1948 allowed a children’s committee to be formed in every Local authority. In 1989 the children’s act was made to allow the children to seek access to protection on matters of their welfare. In 2004 the electronic file that contained the information about each and every child in the country. It also contained information such as the child’s director and commissioner. Conclusion. Generally the child care settings has changed a lot and keeps to change. It is always dynamically changing. One of the things that mark this changes are the introduction of new laws and regulations that concern children and their care. The reason for this changes is to offer children with better lives so that they grow to be happy and beneficial members of the society. From the above essay one can there for conclude that Montessori early child care facility has the best kind of setting. Such great settings will have a great impact to the child’s psychology and future life in general. References. Butt, S., Goddard, K., La Valle, I. (2007). Childcare nation? Progress on Childcare Strategy and Priorities for the Future. London: Daycare Trust. Barnett, W. S., 1995. Long-term effects of early childhood programs on cognitive and school outcomes. The future of children, Volume 1st, pp. 25-50. Department for Education (DfE). (2013). More Great Childcare: Raising Quality and Giving Parents More Choice. London: Department for Education. Department of Health (DoH). (1996). The Medicines Act. London: The Stationery Office. Henniger, M., 2010. The Scope of Early Childhood Education. 1st ed. s.l.: Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall. Humphreys, M., 2015. Welcome to the Child Migrants Trust. [Online] Available at: http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/ [Accessed 17 5 2015]. Kellaghan, T. and Greaney, B.J. (1993). The Educational Development of Students following Participation in a Preschool Programme in a Disadvantaged Area. Dublin. Educational Research Centre. OMNA - DIT/NOW. (2000). The Final Report of OMNA - DIT/NOW Early Childhood Project 1995. Life is a Learning Curve. Dublin: Centre for Social and Educational Research. Piaget, J., 1997. Development and Learning. Readings on the Development of Children, pp. 7-20. Simon & Tzur, H. K., n.d. Explicating a mechanism for conceptual learning elaborating the construct of reflective abstraction. Journal for Research and Mathematics Education, 35(5), pp. 305-329. Smith, L., n.d. Making Educational Sense of Piagets Psychology. Oxford Review of Education, 11(2), pp. 181-191. Vag, O., 1975. The Influence of the English Infant School in Hungary. International Journal of Early Childhood, 7(1), pp. 132-136. Veum, J., & Philip, G. (1991). Child Care: Arrangements and Costs, Monthly Labor Review, 114:10-17. Read More