Local NewsGraduated Approach Booklet You should all now have either received, or will be receiving shortly, your copy of the 'Graduated Approach Booklet'. This handy guide will show you how best to use the booklet.
How to use it?The booklet is split into 9 different categories of need. These are: Speech Language and Communication Needs, Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC), Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH), Learning Disability (LD), Physical Disability (Phy), Hearing Impairment (HI), Vision Impairment (VI), Medical Needs and Sensory Needs.
In each section there is a description of the type of SEND, what High Quality Teaching looks like in relation to this and next steps in terms of Universal Support and Targeted SEN Support. It is designed as a flow. So initially you may look at the description to check the child you have concerns about fits in to some of the descriptors. You would then initially read through the
'High Quality Teaching', ensuring
everyone in your setting is following these. If concerns are still raised, you would then try some of the suggestions in the '
Universal Support' and then finally if concerns are still present, then you would then move to trying elements of '
Targeted SEN Support'.When seeking further support from our service, we will be using this document as a reference guide to see what you have tried previously. It is a working document; we expect to see notes written in the back and any useful contacts jotted down.
Remember, children will not change overnight, it can take a very long time to see the smallest amount of progress.
Every setting has one copy, but further copies can be found
here.
Men in Childcare In England less than three per cent of the early years workforce is male (DFE Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers 2018).
Is your early years provision 'male friendly', are you equipped and prepared to recruit and
retain male practitioners? Working life can be very isolating for a lone male in an early years setting - how well do you as a fellow practitioner or manager support the men in your facility to ensure they are sufficiently protected to stay and continue in their role? When advertising for staff does your advert and marketing material appeal to both genders?
Consider the images and materials used in your provision, the uniform, staff attitudes to male practitioners and staff room conversations – are these 'female-centric' or gender neutral? How would a male feel entering the environment? We need to assure all of these before we even start to consider the prejudice male practitioners may experience from parents.
Male early years practitioners are reporting that their employers are giving into parents' demand for them not to be involved in intimate caregiving, such as changing their child's nappy, because they are uncomfortable with the idea of a man doing it. MITEY's project lead, is quoted as saying 'All too often settings are agreeing to this, and we have to put a stop to this. Apart from it being completely impractical from a workload point of view, it's a terrible message to give to staff, parents and children, that men should be treated as "second class" caregivers.' Managers must support and defend their male practitioners against such views and confidently articulate to parents that staff duties cannot be assigned or limited due to the gender of staff and gender discrimination is not acceptable.
Managers who are successfully recruiting and retaining male practitioners state that images of their male practitioners are prominently displayed in the setting, prospective parents are informed that at this setting we are very lucky to employ male practitioners who undertake the same duties as the female practitioners.
These managers do not stereotype male practitioners into undertaking specific activities such as football, instead they deploy staff according to their skill set as they would female practitioners, they are acutely aware of the importance of children seeing and experiencing both genders in all types of role; caring, nurturing and the outdoors. These managers encourage conversation about gender and immediately address any negativity from parents and female colleagues – it is crucial for managers to support and protect their male workers as full and inclusive team members.
'Southampton Area Men in Early Years' have created sharing tools; including an
Early Years Setting Gender Diversity Audit, this self-assessment tool can be used to support positive change, addressing the gender balance in early years provision, identifying potential areas for improvement, they have also developed a
National Men in Early Years Charter which when displayed informs everyone, including parents and practitioners that in 'this setting' male carers, workers and volunteers are valued and encouraged. MITEY (Men In The Early Years) are running a 'Network' and 'Campaign', they have also created a useful
Mythbuster where they challenge 10 beliefs and myths around the role and suitability of men delivering childcare.
How a setting in Leicestershire is making a difference to the lives of a whole community Cadeby Lane, Stepping Stones an early years setting in Hinckley and Bosworth has been working with Bosworth Court Residential Home to improve outcomes for children and make a positive difference to the lives of the elderly residents.
The work started through the Food for Life programme's intergenerational work. Working with West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, Food for Life introduced Bosworth Court Care Home to Cadeby Lane Stepping Stones Preschool. The care home is home to residents with advanced levels of dementia.
The managers from both provisions put together a programme of activities and initially the pre-school children visited the residential home every two weeks. The young children and elderly residents have enjoyed an array of cooking activities including making butter and fruit salads. Activities have since developed to include gardening, painting, singing and tea parties which all help to recreate memories for the elderly residents and opportunities for the children to develop close relationships.
The benefits to the children and elderly residents were soon recognised and now visits are weekly. The children's confidence, language, personal, social and emotional development has accelerated, and the elderly residents are eating and drinking more, they are also engaged, and staff have seen a significant improvement in their health and well-being especially on days when the children visit.
Parents of the children have also become involved and are amazed at the benefits to the children. This has led to one family sharing a dinner with an elderly resident and parents and children have visited the residential home over the summer holidays. One child asked her mum to stop & say hello to a resident who was being taken for a walk in the village, thus building strong links within the community. One family had a grandparent with dementia and the mum shared with the pre-school how her daughter's empathy and understanding have grown, so having a positive impact on home life too.
The project continues to develop with some of the elderly residents now visiting the pre-school. It is something that the pre-school is very proud of and enjoy, they have been able to showcase the project at recent conferences and on TV.
To see the project in action, you can visit:
www.foodforlife.org.ukSchool ReadinessDuring October 2019 parents/carers of children due to start school in Autumn 2020 will be receiving a letter from Public Health about applying for a school place. Our leaflet,
'Ready for school?', will accompany this letter and we hope that early years providers and schools will promote the leaflet to parents/carers during this time.
We are also encouraging early years providers and schools to use our school readiness social media graphics/messages to raise awareness of Leicestershire's shared view of school readiness and how parents and carers can support children. The messages have been developed to help maintain consistency across all communications activity.
- Consider using the social media graphics from the below selection on whichever social media platforms your setting use.
-662.jpg)
-662.jpg)
-662.jpg)
