Unit 9

• Child-centred planning


  When adults plan with the child at the forefront of everything. Planning involves considering the child's needs and wishes.
• Using a child-centred approach


  1. Observe the child

  2. Consider the child's interests

  3. Know the child's needs

  4. Listen to the child and act on any issues

  5. Use formative and summative assessment to identify the child's progress and stage of development

  6. Use age and stage appropriate resources and activities

  7. Work in partnership with the child and their family

  8. Work in partnership with other professionals
• Benefits of a child-centred approach

  • Promotes independence
  • Enables children to critical thinking skills through making choices
  • Encourages problem solving
  • Increases self-esteem
  • Increases motivation
  • Enables practitioners to learn more about the individual child's interests and needs
  • Supports holistic learning and development
• Challenges of a child-centred approach

  • Staff may not have the relevant training knowledge to meet all the needs that children may have
  • There are multiple sources of input such as parents, early years practitioners and the child. This can create disagreements in the best way forward
  • It may limit the resources and activities used or may involve expensive specialist resources that have a limited value
• The role of the early years practitioner

  1. Observe the child

  2. Consider the child's interests

  3. Know the child's needs

  4. Listen to the child and act on any issues

  5. Use formative and summative assessment to identify the child's progress and stage of development

  6. Use age and stage appropriate resources and activities

  7. Work in partnership with the child and their family

  8. Work in partnership with other professionals
• Supporting learning and development

  1. Observe the child

  2. Use formative and summative assessment to identify the child's progress and stage of development

  3. Consider the child's interests

  4. Use age and stage appropriate resources and activities

  5. Know the child's needs

  6. Work in partnership with the child and their family

  7. Listen to the child and act on any issues

  8. Work in partnership with other professionals
• Physical development


  • Using their big and small muscles
  • Growing taller and stronger
• Cognitive development


  • Problem solving
  • Logical thinking
  • Developing memory skills
• Communication and language development

  • Speaking and listening
  • Using vocabulary
• Social and emotional development

  • Being kind to others
  • Showing empathy
  • Controlling emotions
  • Working with others
• Seven areas of learning and development

  • Communication and language
  • Physical development
  • Personal, social, and emotional development
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the world
  • Expressive arts and design
• Planning cycle


  1. Observe

  2. Assess

  3. Plan

  4. Implement

  5. Review
• Observation stage


  • Watch and listen to the child to see their holistic growth and development
  • Identify what the child is interested in and motivated by
• Assessment stage


  • Compare with expected key milestones of development against current EYFS framework expectations
  • Identify where a child might need support or early intervention
• Planning stage


  1. Agree and record what the child needs: Additional resources

  2. Specific activities

  3. Change in routine

  4. Referral to other professionals

  5. How the practitioner could provide additional support or early intervention
• Implementation


  1. Put the planning into practice

  2. Share the planning with parents/carers and other professionals

  3. Record the actions taken
• Review


  1. Observe the extent to which the needs have been met

  2. Make any adjustments to the planning

  3. Engage in partnership working

  4. Opportunity for practitioner reflection
• All stages of the planning cycle are important to ensure planning is effective as each stage feeds into the next
• The planning cycle is a cycle rather than a list as the stages are linked
• Archie's communication and language development

  Archie is responding to familiar voices, babbling to communicate, but has not yet learned to take turns at speaking as he babbles while others are talking to him so this needs a little more practice
• Archie's communication and language development

  Archie is working towards meeting the 12-month expectations: 'take turns' by babbling and using single words, point to things and use gestures to show things to adults and share interests, begin to use single words like mummum, dada, tete (teddy)
• Resources and activities to support Archie's communication and language development

  1. Chat to Archie but allow time for him to "respond to you"

  2. Let him lead a conversation by making the first sound or gesture

  3. Introduce single words and gestures
• Adult-led play


  Any play activity that has been planned by an adult and has adult involvement within the activity.
• You might find these areas in early years settings: