UK Government Initiatives on Personal Development - Essay Example

Running Head: CURRENT UK GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES Current UK Government Initiatives That Focus On Personal And Emotional Development of the Writer] [Name of the Institution] Current UK Government Initiatives That Focus On Personal And Emotional Development Introduction In recent years evidence regarding learning in the early years has shown just how complex the process is. The work of researchers like Colwyn Trevarthen (1988) has demonstrated that the connections between brain cells are laid down most rapidly in the early years and that the development of these connections-the very essence of learning and thinking-depends on stimulation. Margaret Donaldson (1978) has shown how hard children work to bring their previous experience to bear on new situations and how important it is for children to consolidate their new learning in situations which allow this. Donaldson and others have shown how young children, exposed at too early an age to formal decontextualised learning, learn failure. Donaldson argues powerfully that young children, in order to be able to build on what they already know and can do, need to be in situations which make 'human sense' to them. The current situation in England is one in which the growth of the ECEC sector, in terms of numbers of places, is positively encouraged by the government, especially by the Treasury. This appears to emphasise the care aspect. However, at the same time there are other government-initiated developments concerning the need for improvements in the quality of provision, such as a new training pack for those who work with children aged from birth to three (Abbott et al. 2002) and the Secretary of State Charles Clarke's pledge for more resources. Since 2000, UK governments have invested heavily in leadership development in the NHS to secure policy change and modernise the service. A plethora of leadership programmes and initiatives have been supported with variable success. During recent years in the UK, there have been numerous government initiatives relating to the care and education of young children. Some of these, such as Sure Start, have been very successful, whereas others have proved to be more complicated to implement and fund. The idea that children have rights is a fairly new phenomenon in the UK and probably first appeared in 1924 when the League of Nations drafted the first Declaration of the Rights of the Child. However, Saraga (1998) states that '"rights" like "needs" is a highly contested concept particularly when applied to children'. Saraga goes on to say that children depend on the adults who care for them to assert their rights for them and that rights are limited by the child's vulnerability and dependency. Children's learning and development Child development falls into the two main categories of physical and neurological. Physical skills involve both gross motor skills such as rolling over, crawling and walking, and fine motor skills such as hand-eye coordination, grasping objects, drawing and later writing. Sensory development is also physical and includes sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Intellectual and cognitive development centre on activity in the brain including use of language, smiling and giggling, imagination and working out. Our children's emotional wellbeing also develops in the brain and comprises many areas such as self awareness, self esteem and the ability to interact with others. Playing in some form or another helps to refine these different areas of development in babies and young children. (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/play.html) Children need activities which will stimulate their social, physical, intellectual, linguistic, emotional and moral development. The early years curriculum should be linked with a child's stage of development, which can be ascertained by careful observation of the child and discussions with the parents and family. The child's progress should be monitored, recorded and shared with the parents. Equality of opportunity The individuality of each child must be recognised and each child should be treated according to its needs. Each child should have the same opportunities to play, learn and develop according to its potential. Every child should be treated with equal concern thus avoiding stereotyping and labelling on the basis of gender, religion, culture, race, class or disability Every Child Matters Since the Laming report into the death of Victoria Climbi (DoH 2003a), protecting children and their development has been high on the agenda of the UK government. The report led directly to the new Children Act 2004 and in England and Wales to the Every child matters: change for children programme (DfES 2004). The Birth to Three Matters framework More in recent times, the government's Birth to Three Matters initiative (DfES and DWP 2003) has provided span for the development of play proposals for the under-threes as part of the normal provision for these children. The Birth to Three Matters framework recognises the need for babies to develop through communication with others and emphasises the importance of babies discovering the world around them. The framework's basic principle -- 'Parents and families are central to the wellbeing of the child' (DfES and DWP 2003) -- also strengthens the Sure Start approach. Sure Start Sure Start is a government initiative to tackle child poverty and social elimination. It is about convalescing the health, social and emotional welfare of families and children prior to and from birth, so that children are ready to flourish when they start school. It does this by: setting up local Sure Start programmes to improve services for families with children under 4; and spreading good preparation learned from local programmes to everyone concerned in giving services for young children. Sure Start is firmly based on proof of good practice and "what works". The government's 2000 spending review proclaimed that the project will have 500 programmes running by 2004; the preliminary plans for 452 million investment in Sure Start for the period 1999-2000, 2001-2002 had been complemented with an extra 265m in 2002-03 and 315m in 2003-04. By 2004 the project reached one third of pre-school children living in poverty in England, with 500 projects at a cost of 1billion. (http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/prof_issues/early01.html#4) Objectives There are four main objectives for local Sure Start programmes: Objective 1: Improving social and emotional development Objective 2: Improving health Objective 3: Improving the ability to learn Objective 4: Strengthening families and communities The ways in which these goals are met at a local intensity will diverge according to local needs, but all programmes should include a number of nucleus services, such as: Good quality play, learning and childcare experiences Good quality primary and community health care Support for parents and families Support for children with special needs and their parents What Winnicott said Winnicott introduces, early in his book, the idea of a parent and infant creating 'potential space', psychological space for play and for discovery. '[I]t is play that is universal', Winnicott writes. 'Playing facilitates growth and health; playing leads into group relationships' (1971, p. 41). In such playing space the infant is relatively safe but is also exposed to stimuli and to problems. Winnicott proposed the term 'potential space' to characterise this zone between two worlds. To the infant it is very safe and comforting near the breast, at one pole; more and more open and problematic, even challenging and frightening, at the other. As the infant develops, the 'transitional objects' which it finds or creates in the world of 'not me', take on special characteristics and functions and embody new principles. A child's brick, for example, may continue to be a 'sucking thing' even after it has started to be an 'elementary-geometry-thing'. So transitional objects become toys or tools or 'explore-withs' and we-child or adult-will eventually classify them according to how we use them in our practice or our thinking. Winnicott is emphatic: all cultural objects and artefacts need to be understood in terms of how they first appear in play. The place where cultural experience is located is in the potential space between the individual and the [maternal] environment. ... The same can be said of playing. Cultural experience begins with creative living first manifested as play. (1971, p. 100) Teacher-student development relationship Teaching is very much a process of creating an ethos in which one's students develop and enjoy as many dimensions of their lives as possible. They fashion new aspects and add to others, but if they perceive the activities in which they engage only as chores to be finished so that they can go out to play, the teacher is denied the satisfaction of creating a fruitful ethos. It often is said that the joy of teaching school is seeing children learn. But the ultimate satisfaction in teaching is derived from evidence that the sum of what one did to create a productive ethos did, indeed, do that. (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1967) The excellent teacher seeks to ensure that the child will be fully conscious of her own efficacy and will know the joy that goes with this realisation. Otherwise, neither child nor teacher will experience flow. The child must genuinely believe that he/she did it. The child's experience is testimony to the superb craftsmanship of the ethos, which, in turn, is testimony to the teacher that he, too, succeeded. (Goodlad, 1999, Pg: 571) Practitioners Role Promoting children's learning and development through the provision of child-chosen activities is a further way of recognising the link between decision making and children's development of self-esteem. These activities give the children opportunities to decide with which activity they will play and how they will play with it. It is important for settings to think through how to offer activities to the full age-range of children attending the setting. Sometimes, it will be part of the practitioner's role to help children to make choices. Their decisions to do this will be based on their observations of the children and their responses to the choices offered to them. A child who has joined the setting recently may be observed to be using a particular activity as a safe haven from which to view what is happening in the other activities. To help the child to engage with one of these activities, the key person might ask the child what they like to play with at home and use this to suggest an appropriate activity at which they can both play. Putting together profiles for individual children is one of the ways through which settings promote their learning and development. Seeing these profiles as belonging to the child and her/his parents will encourage practitioners to involve both children and parents in their creation. Again, the way in which practitioners do this will depend upon the age and stage of development of the child. With babies this might involve showing them a photograph of them playing that will be placed in their profile. As young children are able to verbalise their thoughts and ideas, it will involve talking with them about the activities that they enjoy and why; then including these in the individual plan to progress their learning and development. Once children have sufficient language to understand that a collection of the things that they can do and their interests is being kept, they can be encouraged to contribute evidence of their achievements and activities, for example, a photograph that they have taken of a large block construction which they helped to build. One of the early learning goals in the 'confidence and self-esteem' aspect of the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage is 'have a developing awareness of their own needs, views and feelings and be sensitive to the needs, views and feelings of others'. The most effective way for pre-school settings to incorporate these aspects of the frameworks into their practice is to make recognition of the important link between decision-making and the development of children's self-esteem part of the ethos of the setting. This means practitioners giving thought and attention to it in their provision of play activities and all of their interactions with the children. (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/play.html) Conclusion Recent insights into children's development suggest that in principle, the younger the child, the more readily knowledge is acquired through active and interactive processes; conversely, with increasing age children become more able to profit from reactive, passive-receptive pedagogical approaches or instructional processes. In other words, pedagogical practices are developmentally appropriate when the knowledge to be acquired or constructed is related to the child's own first-hand, direct experiences and when it is accessible from primary sources. The last 15 years have seen extraordinary changes in terms of child development and protection and its management although the Children Act 1989 remains pivotal within the current framework. The UK is a pluralistic society and as such it is important that cultural diversity is appreciated and viewed positively; no one culture should be viewed as superior. Children should be helped to develop a sense of their own identity within their race, culture or social group. Children should be introduced to other cultures in a positive way and encouraged to sample food, art, stories and music from different cultures. The catastrophic demise of Victoria Climbi has resulted in thoughtful changes in the law, service organisation and professional practice around child protection. Children's services are now high on the government agenda in all four countries of the UK. The Every Child Matters; Change for Children programme arising out of the Children Bill (DfES 2004) will guarantee that outcomes for children are improved by incorporating services and focusing on the needs of the child and family. References Abbott, L., Langston, A., Ackers, J., Baron, I., Bradbury, C., Holmes, R. and Johnson, M. (2002) Birth to Three Matters: A Framework to Support Children in Their Earliest Years, London: DfES Children and Their Primary Schools: Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1967) Department for Education and Skills (2004) Every Child Matters. Change for Children. London, The Stationery Office. www.dfes.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ Department for Education and Skills and Department for Work and Pensions (2003) Birth to Three Matters: A Framework to Support Children in their Earliest Years. London, DfES Department of Health (2003a) The Victoria Climbi Inquiry. report of an inquiry by Lord Laming. London, The Stationery Office. www.victoria-climbieinquiry.org.uk/finreport/finreport.htm Donaldson, M. (1978) Children's Minds, Fontana. John I. Goodlad, 1999, Flow, Eros and Ethos in Educational Renewal. Phi Delta Kappan. Volume: 80. Issue: 8. Pg: 571 Professional Issues: Early Years Advocacy Pack http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/prof_issues/early01.html#4 Saraga, E. (1998) 'Children's Needs: Who decides', in Mary Langan (ed.), Welfare: Needs, Rights and Risks, London: Routledge/OU. The importance of play in children's development, http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/play.html Trevanthen, C. (1988) 'Brain development', in R.L. Gregory (ed.) The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Oxford University Press Winnicott, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality (London, Tavistock) Read More