PROFESSIONAL LINKS
This chapter addresses the following:
Department for Education (2017) Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the Standards for Learning, Development and Care for Children from Birth to Five. London: DfE.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter you will understand:
how the principles of the early years framework support children to be mentally healthy;
the role of the areas of learning and development in supporting children’s mental health;
the role of the key person;
the principles that underpin assessment and their role in supporting children to be mentally healthy.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter addresses how aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework can support children to be mentally healthy. While the most significant link to mental health in the framework is through personal, social and emotional development, you will learn about how other aspects of the framework can support children’s mental health. Specifically, this chapter addresses the principles of the EYFS and their contribution to children’s mental health. It also covers the areas of learning and their role in supporting positive well-being. The chapter also examines the role of assessment in supporting children’s mental health in the context of attentive adults observing children, understanding individual children’s needs and supporting their learning and development. Finally, the contribution of the characteristics of effective teaching and learning to children’s confidence and self-worth are examined.
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRAMEWORK
Four principles shape practice in early years settings. These are summarised below:
every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured;
children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships;
children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers;
children develop and learn in different ways.
(DfE, 2017)
CRITICAL QUESTIONS
How do you address these principles in your setting?
How might you further embed these principles?
If these principles are addressed, they will support children to be mentally healthy. Valuing each child as a unique learner will help children to develop a positive sense of identity and culture. The framework emphasises that you should respect and value all children and families and by doing this you will support children to develop a positive sense of self-worth. This is critical for supporting children to be mentally healthy. You should establish warm, loving and positive relationships with children to support them in feeling included in the setting and experiencing a sense of belonging. You should value all achievements, however small, recognising that small steps in learning and development can constitute significant milestones for children. Valuing all achievements will promote self-worth, confidence and motivation. Good practice in the early years supports children in learning, offers opportunities to extend learning and encourages children to develop resilience when faced with challenging tasks. This support a child’s well-being, rather than their becoming anxious and concerned about possible failure. The environment enables a safe exploration of new experiences. You should encourage children to persevere with tasks that they find challenging and celebrate their achievements once they have mastered a new skill. Children should be given opportunities to learn through playful experiences. Through well-planned play, developed from your observations of children’s interests and their current stage of development, children will be stimulated and operating at their highest level of development (Vygotsky, 1978). Your role as a practitioner is to plan opportunities for child-initiated playful learning that build on children’s existing capabilities. Activities and learning opportunities should ideally grow organically from the children’s needs and interests.
THE PRIME AREAS OF LEARNING
The prime areas of learning underpin the specific areas and for this reason it is important that greater emphasis is placed on the prime areas, particularly in the 0–3 age range. Supporting the development of children’s skills in these areas will help to develop their confidence and facilitate a positive feeling of self-worth, which is essential for good mental health.
COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE
Developing children’s language skills is essential for subsequent development in reading and writing. Some children do not have well developed communication skills. They may not talk so much, but this is where the experienced practitioner has an important role to play, offering support to join in talk, to extend vocabulary and confidence. This age group benefits from songs, nursery rhymes, short stories, playing with puppets and listening to others in conversation. This may not be a planned activity but it is integral to good practice and should take place throughout the setting. Initially very young children will communicate through glances and responding to touch and noise; as they grow they begin to turn their head to a voice or sound. Babies learn to make noises to get someone’s attention. The attentive carer recognises what the different cries mean. As the baby grows it engages in communication exchange by using eye-contact and gesture. Even after they have developed language skills, some children will be reluctant to speak and express themselves verbally. You can support them by encouraging them to use other forms of expression such as mark-making, drawing, making choices from pictures, pointing and gesture. Through adopting a sensitive and patient approach, you can support children to learn to express themselves verbally and children who are non-verbal can be supported to express themselves through using signs and symbols, including Makaton. Once children have the confidence to express themselves, they can be supported to talk about how they feel if they are exhibiting low mood, anger or upset. If they are not confident in talking to you about their feelings, you can encourage them to talk to puppets. Talking about how they feel or expressing their feelings through non-verbal communication is an important tool to support them in being mentally healthy. If they feel sad, frightened, worried or angry, it is important that they are able to express these feelings. Expressing their feelings to others is a help-seeking strategy that can prevent problems from escalating.
Supporting children’s physical development in the early years is critical because research has identified a correlation between physical activity and mental health. Biddle and Asare’s (2011) review combines much of this research and evidences the positive correlation between physical activity and positive mental health while also demonstrating the link between sedentary screen-time and mental ill-health. However, physical development in the early years is wider than physical activity. It includes the development of gross and fine motor skills, and fine motor skills development in particular underpins children’s development in writing. Proficiency in fine motor skills will give children the confidence to hold and control a pencil, which is a critical aspect of their subsequent development. Using a pencil correctly is a learned skill built up gradually over time. It starts with picking up smaller and smaller objects using the fingers. Playing with objects such as bricks will also support the development of motor skills. You can gradually develop more complex manipulation skills using smaller objects, which builds the fine motor muscles. Finger painting, printing and painting using large fat brushes all underpin the development of motor skills, which supports subsequent development in writing. These developmentally appropriate activities lead to success and build confidence. Once children master the skills of making marks and feel comfortable using different marks then they are more likely to experiment and develop drawing skills. This is only possible when children feel confident and safe trying something new. Asking them to control a pencil, write or draw before they are developmentally ready to do so can result in anxiety, reduced confidence and poor self-worth. If you notice that a child is struggling to control a pencil they might require a fine motor skills intervention rather than a writing intervention. Understanding how children learn and develop will enable you to tailor the interventions to the needs of the child, thus ensuring that interventions are developmentally appropriate. This will build confidence and self-esteem.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Personal social and emotional development is a significant aspect that underpins their mental health. It includes:
As a practitioner you play a critical role in developing children’s self-confidence. This helps them to develop positive self-worth and supports them to take risks in their learning. Confidence and self-worth help children to develop a positive view of themselves and this supports them in being mentally healthy. Supporting children to express and regulate their feelings will also help them to develop a positive view of themselves. Children’s behaviour is usually an attempt to communicate an unmet need rather than a sign of deliberate defiance. Your role as a practitioner is to help children to communicate their needs in positive ways rather than through negative behaviours. This will support them in developing a positive self-concept. Providing children with a social and emotional programme that explicitly focuses on feelings and the rules of social interaction will help them to adjust their behaviours in the context of the setting and develop empathy for others.
Establishing positive relationships is critical for well-being. Human beings are wired for social connectivity, unless they have specific needs such as autism, and social interactions help children to feel included, experience a sense of belonging and stay mentally healthy. Research has demonstrated the importance of social connectedness for positive mental health (Saeri et al, 2017) and the impact of social isolation on children’s mental ill-health (Matthews et al, 2015).
CASE STUDY
Aghala had recently experienced a mid-year transition and Aghala’s new practitioner, Adrian, was concerned about her reluctance to speak and express herself verbally. Aghala’s old practitioner, Abra, has confirmed that there were no concerns about Aghala throughout her time in her previous setting.
Adrian planned an activity to allow Aghala to summarise her feelings through drawing and then discuss these with another child. Aghala responded to this well and completed both activities. Adrian continued to repeat this activity on a weekly basis. For ten weeks, Aghala would not discuss her feelings with Adrian but she would communicate these to other children. Eventually, after ten weeks, Aghala discussed her drawings and explained to Adrian why she had chosen to draw what she had. Adrian’s sensitive and patient approach supported Aghala and developed her confidence. Giving Aghala these different options to express her feelings supported her social connectedness and, in doing so, promoted her positive mental health.
THE SPECIFIC AREAS OF LEARNING
In literacy children develop their skills in reading and writing and there is a strong emphasis on the role of systematic synthetic phonics in supporting children to be readers and writers. This chapter has already considered the role of motor skills in underpinning writing development. Reading development is underpinned by visual discrimination skills, visual memory and phonological awareness skills, including developing sensitivity to rhyme. If children are struggling to master the skills of phoneme blending and segmenting, you should assess their visual and phonological awareness skills before providing synthetic phonics intervention. Some children may require interventions in these aspects before their phonemic awareness can be developed. You should ensure that rich opportunities to develop reading and writing are integrated into areas of continuous provision and you should provide children with exposure to a rich range of language, stories, information books and poems. Children should also have regular opportunities to listen to stories. Providing developmentally appropriate interventions will provide children with the skills they need to be effective readers and writers, foster self-worth and confidence, all of which are crucial for good mental health.
The importance of children learning mathematics through access to practical, concrete resources cannot be overstated. This will ensure that mathematical concepts become firmly embedded in the child’s mind. You should also plan opportunities to develop mathematical understanding through play-based learning so that children can apply the skills they have learned in adult-directed learning.
UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD
Through this area of learning, children learn about the differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions. This supports them in developing empathy for others and in fostering a climate of inclusion. These aspects of learning support children in being mentally healthy.
Children can express their feelings through the arts; for example, through drawing or painting they can communicate how they feel. The arts provide a unique opportunity to learn through the senses. Through the arts children can develop their confidence, self-esteem and creativity. The arts as a whole play a critical role in supporting positive mental health.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
The characteristics of effective teaching and learning play a crucial role in supporting children’s mental health. Consequently, you should integrate these characteristics into the planned and unplanned daily experiences of children. The characteristics are stated below:
playing and exploring: children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’;
active learning: children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements;
creating and thinking critically: children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
(DfE, 2017)
Through supporting children to take risks in their learning and to persevere with activities that are either self-chosen or directed by an adult, children will experience a sense of achievement once they have mastered a task. This will develop confidence, self-worth and help them to understand that they can learn and develop through failure. You should ensure that children are never afraid to make mistakes in their learning. Through providing opportunities for playful active learning, children will be intrinsically motivated, engaged and obsessed in their learning. This supports them in being mentally healthy. Through celebrating their achievements with them you will develop their self-esteem. Through allowing to make their own decisions about their learning you will provide them with agency, which will breed confidence, motivation and positive mental health.
CRITICAL QUESTIONS
OTHER IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE FRAMEWORK
Other key aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework contribute to children’s mental health. The framework states that:
Practitioners must consider the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child in their care and must use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all of the areas of learning and development.
(DfE, 2017, para 1.6)
CRITICAL QUESTIONS
How do you plan to address children’s interests in your setting?
How might this aspect be further enhanced?
By planning developmentally appropriate learning opportunities children will experience success in their learning. You should take time to get to know the child, ascertain their strengths, areas for development and interests. You should aim to integrate their interests into the learning opportunities that you plan for them and planned activities should build on what children already know and can do. For children whose first language is not English, you should support them in using their home language within their play as well as using English. This cultural sensitivity will provide them with confidence and engender a sense of inclusion and belonging. These aspects underpin children’s well-being. The framework states that:
For children whose home language is not English, providers must take reasonable steps to provide opportunities for children to develop and use their home language in play and learning, supporting their language development at home.
(DfE, 2017, para 1.7)
Planning opportunities to learn through a combination of child-initiated and adult-led learning will provide children with the best foundation for their learning. This mix of learning opportunities will help to develop their confidence. Children should be given opportunities to apply the skills, knowledge and understanding that you address through adult-led learning tasks in their child-initiated learning so that learning becomes embedded. The framework states that:
Each area of learning and development must be implemented through planned, purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activity. Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others. Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play which is guided by adults.
(DfE, 2017, para 1.8)
Providing children with opportunities to self-initiate tasks will help to build children’s confidence and provide them with ownership of their own learning.
The Early Years Foundation Stage framework states that ‘Each child must be assigned a key person. Their role is to help ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs’ (DfE, 2017, para 3.27). Your role as a key worker is to establish warm, positive and trusting relationships with children in your care. You should value their identities and families and you should help children to recognise that you believe in them. Your role in building children’s confidence and empowering them to express their views and feelings cannot be overstated. For children who have no attachment figure at home, your role is critical in helping children to feel safe, secure, loved and valued.
The Early Years Foundation Stage states that ‘Providers must have arrangements in place to support children with SEN or disabilities’ (DfE, 2017, para 3.67). In the Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (DfE and DoH, 2015), mental health is a recognised special educational need and/or disability. If you identify that a child has a mental health need, you should discuss this with the special educational needs and disability co-ordinator, the child’s parent(s) or carer(s) and the child. If the child is identified as needing special educational needs support then practitioners are responsible for implementing a Graduated Approach to meet their needs. This is outlined below.
Assess: assess the child’s current need(s) to ascertain the starting points for planning;
Plan: plan intervention(s) to build on the child’s existing capabilities;
Do: implement interventions to address the identified need(s);
Review: monitor the impact of the interventions to ascertain if they were successful.
(DfE and DoH, 2015)
In the EPPE study (Sylva et al, 2004), research has explored the impact of pre-school on the impact of children with different kinds of needs. This research demonstrates that pre-school is particularly beneficial to those children who are disadvantaged. Of these children, the study found that one in three children were ‘at risk’ of developing learning difficulties at the start of pre-school, although this fell to one in five by the time they started school. This demonstrates that pre-school can be an effective intervention for the reduction of special educational needs (SEN).
Data for 2017 for children aged 2–4 years shows that 8.4 per cent of boys had a mental disorder compared to 3.9 per cent of girls.
(Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2018)
ASSESSMENT
Assessment in the early years is conducted via observations of children’s learning in a range of contexts. This enables you to identify what children know and can do within the context of their natural learning environment. This ensures that assessment is not de-contextualised from the process of learning and it does not place children under stress. Formal tests and assessment tasks increase the risk of stress and anxiety and are not appropriate in the early years. It is also important that assessment does not become a ‘tick box’ exercise by writing copious observations of children, which simply constitute evidence that is stored in a file. The purpose of any assessment should be to promote learning. If assessment becomes a bureaucratic exercise then its true purpose can be lost. You should only aim to produce evidence that will help you to advance children’s learning and development; this will protect your own mental health as a practitioner.
Children may struggle to adapt their behaviour from that which is acceptable in the home to the expectations of the setting. Instead of focusing on negative behaviour, it is better to notice and acknowledge positive behaviour in order to increase the chances of children repeating it. It is more effective to respond to misbehaviour in a calm and controlled way. The reasons why children demonstrate inappropriate behaviour are complex and multifaceted. They may be rooted in the child’s social environment, individual biology or factors arising from the setting. Demonstrating unconditional positive regard to children is essential. Some children will require a structured social and emotional intervention to support them in developing appropriate behaviours. An individual reward system, bespoke to the child, may be effective in some instances.
CASE STUDY
Jordan’s parents and his practitioner have different expectations of his behaviour and as a result of this Jordan finds it hard to adapt his behaviour when moving between these settings. Jordan’s practitioner, Dan, has consulted with Jordan’s parents and conversation is ongoing.
In the meantime, Dan has introduced a system that notices and acknowledges examples of Jordan’s positive behaviour and Dan has noticed that Jordan has started to repeat these behaviours. Dan does still respond to misbehaviours, although these have reduced since he began to focus on positive behaviours. Dan is trialling these ideas in his setting and is sharing these resources with Jordan's parents who have agreed to trial the idea in their home setting.
2017 data for children aged 2–4 years shows the prevalence of behavioural disorders for different ethnic groups: 3.3 per cent of those who were white had a behavioural disorder compared to 0.3 per cent of children from black and minority ethnic groups.
Also, 2 per cent of boys had oppositional defiant disorder compared to 1.6 per cent of girls.
(Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2018)
In the EPPE study (Sylva et al, 2004), balance between areas of learning was examined and its impact on developmental domains was highlighted. The study demonstrates that settings that emphasise literacy, maths, science/environment and children’s diversity promote better attainment outcomes for children in subsequent academic years, and especially in reading and mathematics. The study also found that settings that were strong on these aspects of learning also tended to be strong on the social and behavioural aspects too.
CRITICAL QUESTIONS
UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO BEHAVIOUR
Children may struggle to adapt their behaviour from that which is acceptable in the home to the expectations of the setting. Instead of focusing on negative behaviour, it is better to notice and acknowledge positive behaviour in order to increase the chances of children repeating it. It is more effective to respond to misbehaviour in a calm and controlled way. The reasons why children demonstrate inappropriate behaviour are complex and multifaceted. They may be rooted in the child’s social environment, individual biology or factors arising from the setting. Demonstrating unconditional positive regard to children is essential. Some children will require a structured social and emotional intervention to support them in developing appropriate behaviours. An individual reward system, bespoke to the child, may be effective in some instances.
SUMMARY
This chapter has explained how the Early Years Foundation Stage framework supports children and promotes their mental health. It has linked this to personal, social and emotional development among other aspects of the framework. The principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage have been addressed and the areas of learning and their role in supporting positive well-being have been addressed. The importance of considering assessment and its impact on children’s mental health is also emphasised and the characteristics of effective teaching and learning are covered and linked to children’s confidence and self-worth.
CHECKLIST
This chapter has addressed:
the principles of the early years framework;
how these principles support children’s positive mental health;
the role of the areas of learning and development and the impact of these on children’s mental health;
the principles of assessment and the role of these in supporting children’s positive mental health.
FURTHER READING
Ekkekakis, P (2015) Routledge Handbook of Physical Activity and Mental Health. Oxon: Routledge.
Williams, L (2016) Positive Behaviour Management in Early Years Settings: An Essential Guide. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.