Leadership

Task 1: Describe your current role, you setting, and the curriculum framework/ guidance used in your setting My name is Veronica Ampaw, I am a qualified child minder, currently working with 6 children, between the ages of five months (5) to seven years (7), with a member of staff (who works thrice a week) and an intern who works once a week. I’m a mother of five (5) children and a former Deputy Manager in a nursery which I resigned three months ago to become a full time early year practitioner. I also do after school club. After working in the nursery for over seventeen (17) years and having gained all the relevant experience coupled with my qualification in the early years: developing practice from the Open University, I decided it was about time I moved on to start my own business in child minding. My desire to become a self-employed child minder was fuelled by the fact that I would like to introduce to early years foundation stage principles to my Ghana currently as it seems like only Montessori is recognised in Ghana. TASK 2: Leadership I have chosen to give myself a rating of two; (on the scale of 1-5) this is because I would like to improve my interaction with my sphere of influence particularly the parents. I would also like to develop a good relationship with the parents to encourage them to see me as approachable and professional in carrying out my duties of care for their children. Furthermore I would also like to build a good critical stress management structure to deal with issues arising from the heath care and day-to-day well-being of the children hence developing a two way feedback system will be very important to update parents and share information from my observation of their children. I would also like to have knowledge of decision making, problem solving and critical thinking. McCall and lawler (2000) who tells us that: leadership must hold some idea of the future, the distant horizon and full game plan and they need the capacity to maintain personal and team momentum on the journey towards securing the desired goal. I intend to improve knowledge of leadership roles by undertaking a full understanding of how to interact more with the parents of the kids under my care. I would also like to attend any workshop that would help me bust my Confidence. Planning and assessment I would like to improve this by getting the parents more involve in observation and assessment. Steps I intend to improve my understanding is to put children first; to listen to them and their parents; to observe what they can do; and to make them the most important influence on planning, observational assessment. ICT I will give myself a rating of 2 in my ideas on the use of ICT. I believe ICT in the early years is a rich area of a child’s educational development that when used effectively in the foundation stages will help the child grow and tell me the carer and the parent more about the child hence I would like to improve in the following areas: I would like to improve my knowledge of the technologies I intend to use for a child’s educational development. I would like to improve focus on the embedding of observational assessment practices across the early years I would like to improve the use of technology that reflects the children's real worlds I would like to improve introduction of creative software programs Steps I intend to take to improve my knowledge and skills in relation to my practice . To improve my knowledge of the technologies I intend to use for a child’s educational development. For children to be stimulated they need to be interested and a child’s interest can be cultivated by the practitioner's skill with the appropriate technologies. Children exploring technology are interested in how it works, what it does and how it is meaningful for them; at this level of play they are not interested in producing a particular outcome. Repeated practice will consolidate what they know, work out how sequences of actions work together and build their confidence and sense of achievement. After this comes the use of technologies for a purpose. To improve focus on the embedding of observational assessment practices across the early years, and sought to involve children and their parents in the process. To achieve this I would introduce staff use of Digital cameras in the early years settings for observation and assessment. This will improved both the ICT skills and the observational skills of practitioners and provide digital documentation of leaning. I would like to improve the use of technology that reflects the children's real worlds, this can allow children to share, problem-solve and talk about daily events. Example of this can be recording messages on telephone and playing it back, writing on computer as this is common in almost every home today I would like To improve by introducing creative software programs that allow children to make a polished product and can raise their self-esteem, particularly for those children who are less able to access painting and drawing through other means. ICT tools can be very powerful facilitators of group work; children will be more willing to learn about sharing, turn taking, co-operating and collaborating when they are joining in an activity that they all very much want to be a part of. I would also like to take extra classes in anything that I may not have knowledge of, or I would like to get someone in the family that knows about ICT better than I do. TASK 3: ACTION PLAN Leadership Objective • To improve my communication skills with parents. - Going for training workshop. • To motivate and aspire my staff - By setting myself as a role model, awarding them when needed, daily appraisals, meetings, feedback on their progress. Send staff for training and also reading intellectual daily nursery magazines, BBC education plan. • Visiting other child-minder setting- Handing out questionnaire to parents to develops my ideas on how enhance my skills on early years partition. • Participating with other colleagues in my environment- sharing ideas on how to develop my setting and acquiring knowledge • Reading through the opening university books- To develop more knowledge on true leadership skills. • Effective observation and listening to the children- This is significant for future planning. • Tutorial classes- Feeding back information from my lectures will give me more knowledge on how deal with any issue. ICT objective • IT skills- it is important I develop my skills on Microsoft word, PowerPoint and excel. This would enable me to work more efficiently in regards to building up questionnaires and anything relating to my assessment. • Enhancing the children intellectual- I need to get the children involved on computer games and music. • Dragon-naturally software- On most occasions the use of the dragon does not recognise my accent, so therefore I have to command the inbuilt dictionary to assist me. • Reading skills- It is important that I enhance my reading skills through online journals, biography and weekly update on the nursery world. • The use of emails- Been able to send emails to my tutors for feedback on assignment progression. • Internet search- for a topic on day to basis and analysis. Planning and assessment objective • Key person- Early years foundation 08 2.4 states “A key person responsibilities for working with a small number of children, giving them the reassurance to feel safe and cared for and building relationships with their parents”. I stand as role model to ensure the children gets the best service. • Plan, design, implement, monitor and assess activities and experience that support children’s development and learning through play schemes ranging of different varieties and pre-occupations. In their play children learn at their highest level. Play with peers is important for children development. • Parent’s involvement- It is important parents are aware of their child day to day learning progress. Early years foundation 08 2.2 states “parents are children’s first and most enduring educators. When parents and practitioners work together in early years settings, the results have a positive impact on children’s development and learning”. Working in partnership- . Early year’s foundation 08 3.4 “working with other settings, other professionals and with individuals and groups in the community supports children development and progress towards the outcome of every child matters: being • Healthy; staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and economic well-being. • It is important I support children’s learning and development. It gives them the confidence to explore and learn in secure and safe, yet challenging, indoor and outdoor spaces. Reference • Cable. C, Linda M and Goodliff Gill, 2010, Working with Children in the Early years, USA, A David Fulton publisher. • Department for children, Schools and families (DCSF) (2008B) practise guidance for early years foundation stage, Nottingham, DCSF. • E100, 2009, early years practice: practitioners and children, Milton Keynes, The Open University. • Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2006) children Workforce Strategy: Building an integrated qualifications Framework, London, DfES. • DVD 1 E100 The open university Bibliography Statutory framework for the Early years Foundation Stage (Every child matters, Change for children) department for children, schools, families.