Students are required to develop a professional response to the four scenarios described below that have occurred in early childhood settings. Address each of these scenarios based on perspectives of children, families and educators. Make reference to the unit study materials, the NQS (ACECQA, 2018) and the EYLF (DET, 2019). Ensure you use correct APA 7^th referencing style in-text and for your References list and use the marking rubric as a guide for the criteria you will be marked against.

Rationale

The scenarios are based on real life events in early childhood settings and relate to the early childhood principles and practices that have been explored over the first three weeks of the unit. Develop a professional response to each scenario to demonstrate your knowledge of relationships and the environment, by referring to the EYLF, the NQS and unit materials to support your points. The questions specify the minimum requirements for each response, and you may add additional points, however, ensure you remain within the word limit.

Scenario 1:

You are the educator in this toddler room. You want to allow the children to have more autonomy in the room, to make choices for themselves and take control of their environment.

1. Describe what you might tell families about your improvement and why you are making these changes with justification using NQS Quality Areas.
2. What are one EYLF Learning outcome, Practice and Principle that align with your actions and why?

Scenario 2

You are the educator responsible for a four-year-old room in a long day care centre. You are wanting to implement a healthier eating program within your room to achieve Exceeding status in the Assessment and rating process. You have diverse family groups from a wide variety of cultures and preferences (including families who are vegan).

1. What NQS Quality Area and Standard does this relate to and what one EYLF Practice and one Principle would you use to justify your changes?
2. What are two ways you could involve the children in implementing these changes? Use literature to support your ideas.

Scenario 3

You are the educator in the 18month old room. You have a number of new staff who do not understand why the children are so upset when their parents leave of a morning. You want to ensure they are aware that this is a normal stage of development.

1. Describe one theory you could refer to, to explain this separation anxiety?
2. Explain a strategy you could use to help the children build trust and settle each morning?
3. Outline to your staff an EYLF Principle and NQS Quality Area to justify why these actions are important for the child and family.

Assessment Rubric

Grade descriptions

ASSESSMENT TASK 1: CRITICAL REVIEW

Scenario 1

 Question 1

As per the given scenario, I might tell families about the lack of experiencing anatomy by children in toddler rooms which has started impacting their behavioural as well as psychological development, “Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice”  of “The National Quality Standard (NQS) System”  supports conducting educational programs and practices that are children centred which would allow them to feel freer to make choices for themselves (Acecqa.gov.au, 2022). Besides, I would tell families that there are high requirements for conducting educational programs and practices that support the “Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice” of the “National Quality Standard (NQS) System”.

On the other hand, significant systematic as well as learning through play activities will be introduced and staffing more skilled educators will be presented to families. As per my knowledge, these particular activities will be very much effective for engaging children more with the environment created in the toddler room and also allow them to develop their cognitive understanding ability. The aforementioned changes justify “Quality Area 5 – Relationships with children” and “Quality Area 4 – Staffing arrangements” respectively of the NQS System (Acecqa.gov.au, 2022). The fundamentals of “Quality Area 5 – Relationships with children”  stands upon supporting relationships with children that are considered highly responsive and at the same time also help in promoting a sense of belonging as well as security among children.  I must say that reporting significant progress in implementing changes in existing toddler room settings will be done with the help of conducting a continuous communication process as well as active consultation with families of children following the fundamentals of “Quality Area 6 – Collaborative partnerships with families and communities” of NQS System.

Question 2

The “EYLF Learning outcome” which is significantly aligned with actions taken me is “Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world”  as the implementation of significant changes will allow children to experience more autonomy in the toddler room towards making their choice by themselves and express their emotions, feelings as well opinions as they wish.  The outcome deals with ensuring children develop a significant disposition of learning that highlights their creativity, commitment, cooperation, confidence, enthusiasm, etc (Aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au, 2015). “Secure, respectful and reciprocal relationships” as the principle of changes will be met in the way implementation of changes has remained aimed at making children more strong and independent in their emotional as well as social well-being.

Besides, the principles of  “EYLF Learning outcome”  has remained aligned with the proposed changes in the way it has remained to ensure children's needs to feel secure as well as reciprocal relationships which impacts their emotional well-being inversely. Moreover, I must say that each and every change in practice considering transforming the existing toddler room has remained based on following the effective responsiveness of children as well as implementation under a holistic approach.  Apart from these,   the plan implementation that has been made by me has remained standing on following the core principle of partnership in terms of active collaboration and agreeableness of families of children in order to consider changes which have aimed at taking place within the existing toddler room. 

Scenario 2

Question 1

As per the provided case scenario, it can be stated that the approach plan for implementation relates to “Quality Area 3 – Physical environment”  as the fundamental of this particular quality area mainly supports considering a diverse range of toddler room environments which has remained consisting of managing children belonging to various cultures as well as social background. This particular quality area consideration relates to supporting children's development within diverse organisational areas and at the same time promotes strategy to cope with diverse environments in future.  On the other hand, the core fundamentals of this quality area mainly focus on ensuring children feel free to eat and experience diverse food cultures including veganism (Acecqa.gov.au, 2022).  Implementation of a healthier eating program will be beneficial for each and every child to understand the real-time existence of different types of cultures and a wide range of preferences.

Apart from considering NQS Quality Area and Standard related to the plan, I must say that “Respect for diversity” is one principle following the EYLF Learning Principle that will be taken under consideration as there will be families who belong to different cultures as well as social aspects. On the other hand, “Cultural competence”  as one of the practices has been taken under consideration which mainly supports the existence of cultural differences in order to manage them (Kirk & Barblett, 2022). On the other hand, the choice of one practice as well as a principle will be effective and remain aligned with the approached changes as it is focused on introducing a healthier eating program which includes the vegan genre also.   Plan implementation following both “NQS Quality Area and Standard” and “EYLF Learning Principle and Practices” would be effective as cultural differences impacting food preference diversification would be effectively considered in the time of continuing practices under the following criteria.

Question 2

As per my knowledge, I would introduce attractive reward-based eating programs to ensure the active participation of children which would include the provision of attractive playing facilities as well as the provision of playing gadgets. As per the views of Barblett & Kirk (2018), most children in the early development stages are in search of attractive facilities that meet their psychological needs.  In this case, the provision of attracting playing facilities through which they can learn also would attract their mind to take active participation in order to achieve the reward. Besides, in this case, offering attractive and popular healthy, homemade candies can take the place of providing a reward to children. On the other hand, serving a variety of healthy food in an innovative way would be effective for ensuring the active participation of children in the healthier food program that has been proposed. As per the views of Aajiz et al. (2020), garnishing food dishes with attractive garnishing materials which look eye-catching and at the same time are considered as enhancing children's desire to grab it.  In this case, this particular strategic consideration for ensuring children's active participation in healthier food programs would be effective. On the other hand,  in this case, play-based healthy eating session conduction can be recommended for ensuring active children's participation.

Scenario 3

Question 1

            “Cognitive Behavioural Theory” supports the fundamentals of interconnecting human behaviour, thoughts, emotions as well as body sensations which control anxiety levels. As per the views of Du et al. (2019), “Cognitive behavioural Theory (CBT)”  mainly supports anxiety experienced by individuals at their developmental stage. Following this fundamental, getting upset by children at their developmental stages can be justified as in development stages,  children remain confused about their feelings and feel significant insecurities. In this case, they seek to experience a completely known environment which somehow breaks while their parents leave them at early development school in the morning.   This is considered an ordinary aspect of the child development process which needs to be treated in the way the understanding level of children needs to be properly identified towards engaging them in attractive activities.

Besides, following the fundamentals of the aforementioned theoretical perspectives, it can be stated that showing the upset nature of children is mainly their thought-driven activities which are also interconnected with changing behavioural approaches. In this case, children are suffering from a little bit of anxiety about being left by their parents who create the most familiar environment to ensure their development.  In this case, their emotions reflect upon their behavioural changes which show them upset for a while after leaving their parents.

Question 2

            In order to handle the scenario-based situation, in this case,  introducing attractive morning activities along with welcoming features is highly required which can easily divert their mind from leaving their parents. As per the views of Kirk & Barblett (2022), in the early development stages, children’s mind remains at a highly conscious as well as engaging level and can engage easily in various types of activities.  In this case, introducing engaging welcoming sessions for all children would be effective to experience the pleasant moment at the start of the day without having an upset mind. On the other hand, this particular activity presentation will be beneficial to develop the interaction of children and at the same time helps in building trust by understanding and experiencing a diverse range of personality-based people.

Question 3

            Among all principles underlined by the EYLF Learning Principle set, considering “Ongoing learning and reflective practices”  would be beneficial for outlining core staff activities for managing children and families.  As per the views of Barblett & Kirk (2018), the fundamental of “Ongoing learning and reflective practices”  mainly deals with developing and changing professional activities done by staff in order to manage various types of activities towards managing children and understanding their mental stability. On the other hand,  among the seven criteria of NQS Quality Areas “Quality Area 4 – Staffing arrangements” needs to be taken into consideration as highly skilled staff arrangements for managing children would be effective for developing their skills and abilities and fulfilling families' requirements on time.

The above-presented criteria selection is considered very important for managing children-related toddler room activities as well as enhancing potential skills to easily understand children's perspectives and become friends with them.  Developing respectful relationships with children as well as families requires staff outlined by the following principle and quality criteria consideration.

Reference List

Journals

Aajiz, N. M., Raza, K. K., & Niazi, A. (2020). Meta-analysis of quality standards for teacher education. THE SPARK A HEC Recognized Journal, 4, 105-115. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/287193023.pdf

Barblett, L., & Kirk, G. (2018). National quality standard in schools: Leadership enabling power and agency. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 43(3), 43-51. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.23965/AJEC.43.3.05

Du, S., Li, T., Yang, Y., & Horng, S. J. (2019). Deep air quality forecasting using hybrid deep learning framework. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 33(6), 2412-2424. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1812/1812.04783.pdf

Kirk, G., & Barblett, L. (2022). Implementing the National Quality Standard in schools: leadership that motivates improvement initiatives through psychological ownership. The Australian Educational Researcher, 49(2), 367-385. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-021-00446-8

Websites

Acecqa.gov.au (2022). National Quality Standard. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/nqf/national-quality-standard

Aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au (2015). EYLF Learning Outcomes. https://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/articles/childcare-programming/eylf-learning-outcomes#:~:text=1.1%20Children%20feel%20safe%2C%20secure,with%20care%2C%20empathy%20and%20respect.

Aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au (2015). Understanding EYLF. https://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/articles/childcare-programming/understanding-eylf