STARTING POINTS: PART 10 - Riley, 56 months old

By Julia Manning-Morton, an independent consultant, trainer and author (www.key-times.co.uk/profiles/). She specialises in practice and provision that meets the needs of children under three and is an expert on the personal, social and emotional well-being of children and practitioners.

Her publications include Two-Year-Olds In Early Years Settings: Journeys Of Discovery (2015)
and Exploring Well-being in the Early Years (2014)

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP: BUILDING TRUST WITH PARENTS

The team at Brendan’s nursery school, St Mary’s, reviewed their intake of children two years ago, with a focus on so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ families. Following training, staff had come to question why their service was not being used by the local families of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage.

They learned from the local Traveller Education Support Service (TESS) team that the families often live or travel in small, well-established, extended family groups and that usually parents prefer not to send their children to nursery or school before they reach statutory school age. They also discovered that the TESS team had set up an outreach programme at a local Traveller site, providing some health services in partnership with the community health team.

Inspired by this work, and in recognition that children from these backgrounds are often disadvantaged in the education system, St Mary’s secured funding for an outreach worker to work alongside the TESS team, providing play sessions and a toy library on the site.

When the school’s outreach worker Bethan started to work at the site, she rarely saw Riley’s father, Brendan, as he was working, so she made a particular effort to do a home visit at a time when he would be available. During their discussion, Bethan suggested that attending nursery school would not only benefit Riley but would also relieve Teresa.

Brendan was initially reluctant to agree to this. In his view, early childcare is the responsibility of the family and he was worried that the community would think it inappropriate. He also worried about whether Riley would be safe being looked after by people outside the community.

Bethan understood that these were real concerns for Brendan, so offered the alternative of additional play sessions in the trailer. However, Brendan soon realised that the sessions wouldn’t help Teresa, so he agreed to Riley starting nursery school. The trusting relationship Bethan had built up with the family gave Brendan confidence in the nursery school staff being able to care well for Riley.


PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

For Riley, starting at the nursery school was the first time he had spent time with adults who were not family members and other children who were not Travellers. But his home experience of being part of a group of children, along with his friendly and interested disposition, helped him to adapt to the nursery environment.

The links that the nursery had built up with his family, along with the transition training that Riley’s key person, Tamsyn, had undertaken, provided a firm foundation on which to build the settling-in process.

At first, there were aspects of the nursery routine that Riley found difficult, such as having to stop playing and come inside for ‘circle time’. Tamsyn noticed how Riley’s behaviour deteriorated when he was indoors for any length of time, so she planned for as much of the routines, such as snack and circle times, to be outside as possible and also engaged Riley in negotiation when he did need to be inside.

She noticed how well he was able to come to a compromise when he was involved in decision-making. She also noticed that he often became the ‘mediator’, helping other children to resolve minor arguments. This, she thought, showed his developing Theory of Mind – that is, his ability to empathise and understand that other people may have beliefs, intentions and perspectives that are different from his own.

However, a less desirable behaviour that demonstrated Riley’s social skills was teasing. This he sometimes did in a light-hearted way, when he was joking, and sometimes when he was cross with another child. Occasionally, the teasing tipped over into hurting another child’s feelings, but Tamsyn saw how quickly he was prepared to ‘make up’ when she discussed it with him. She also understood that this behaviour showed his good social understanding and was part of building his developing social skills.


48-60 months: key aspects of personal, social and emotional development

Usually at this age, children: