Task 6c-literature on the importance of play in childhood

I found this artical on a website for parents, carers and students. Its quite a factual piece about how play effects a childs development in the early years of their life. It talks about play for all living things in their early life which i have never thought about- "...Play is universal throughout the animal kingdom -- whether it's a puppy chasing its tail, or young birds swooping through the air. " Its a very interesting way too look at it. All living things go through the play stage in their early years and it is only through that, that they learn a way of life through their parents and experiances which will then structure the rest of their lives.
It dicusses the importance of how parents influence a childs wellbeing through play. Children are stimulated through our parents taking the time to talk to their child, play with them and open them up to new experiances. It made me realize that some of us only know how to do this through how our parents treated us so we pass it on to our children...so what happens to the children that are treated badly by their parents? how do they get the experiances and lessons that we learnt? what effects does this have on knock on generations?


http://www.child-development-guide.com/importance-of-play.html

I found another artical about the importance of play from somewho who practices in New York, America Anita Gurian, PhD. She states that play is from the ages of 2-6years. Its interesting to see that someone has actually put a time frame on this play stage in a childs life and quite debatible for some practioners. This would be something i could use in my inquiry as personally i feel that we never stop playing, even way into our adult years. It also makes me think about education settings and how they beleive that once passed reception age children are expected to have only short times to actaully have free play where they choose what they want to do. The rest is structured learning. Is this to early for them? what effects does it make on our children being deprived of this play? How old should children be allowed to play up to? are we fausing our children to grow up to quickly?
Again in this article it states how important parents are to the development of our children. But how do we expet our parents to support this if they dont no how to do it themselves? How can we chage this?

http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/play_important_or_waste_time

A literature review written by Josie Gleave in june 2009. In this review she discusses the importance of play but how it is being effected. Alot of schools now go by the EYFS but are starting to use it as a learning structure for the children where as josie is saying we should just let them play. She addresses issues themed as:
Play has become more organised and structured
Play has become ‘institutionalised’
Children are spending less time in outdoor space
Children’s time could be ‘over-scheduled’
Differences in children’s time to play
Modern technology
The family
Schools
Within these themes Josie discusses how simple things like walking to school with out an adult is important to a childs development. She has looked at historic changes in education and early years of childrens life. Its interesting to see how much it has changes, Only 6 % of children walk to school on their own these days. Not many children even experiance playing in a public space with out suppervision from an adult. Even i can remember being allowed to play out on my road and given boundies but now i very rarely see children playing out and i definatly wouldnt allow my niece or nephew to play out. All these ideas link in with my ideas for my inquiry about play development.

http://www.playday.org.uk/pdf/Childrens-time-to-play-a-literature-review.pdf


Looking at different peoples view points on Play development has really opened my eyes to how i can go about my inquiry and some of the themes i can lead it to. As a practioner i enjoy looking into different peoples view points and i feel that it helps to brauden my knowledge on this subject area.

Tash 6b

Critical Reflection on the 4 tools i carried out.....

Observation
The obsrvation i carried out was on the teacher and a child. I found the observation to not be very useful to me at this time as i was not specific with it enough. Reasons being as i just done it observing day to day activities in the nursery. I feel that if i were to use this tool in the future i need to look more closely at something specific for example 'a childs behaviour during activities or how long a child stays at something'. The kind of observation i carried out would be more useful to analize rather than use as a solid piece of literature.

Interview
I found the interview a really useful tool overall. The implications with this tool is that it can be time consuming and actually getting round to doing it during school time is hard. Part of me felt i was using someones time up when they could be doing something within the classroom. However what i got from it has been really useful to me. It was very informal and felt more like a conversation between two professionals. The teacher was able to give me an insight into to her views on the question in hand and what she has descussed with other professionals in meetings regarding this matter. This helped me to gather knowledge on who else would be a realable source to gather information from.

Survey
The survey was one of my most successful. I feel this is because people dont feel presured into filling them in and can take there own time. Also i think that when they are written anonomusly you get peoples real views on certain subjects. Working in a school environment can lead people to not expressing there own feelings because they are worried about being judged. I left the Questions in the staffroom with a heading of who i was, where i worked and what they were for. I think its important for people to feel comfortable in why these questions are being asked and what for. The answers dip into different areas that are also effect by the question in hand. This has helped me to look at a wider view. Plus it gives me an oppotunity to get answers from people i dont work with on a day to day basic and different professions.

Focus Group
This is the hardest type of tool to conduct. However you get some great research material from it. Trying to gather a number of individuals that are all working to different time scales and deadlines is such a hard task. Again i felt like i was presurising people to take part when they didnt really want to. I think using this tool for things like interviews is a great tool as you get to notice people who are confident in the knowledge that they have and shine as leaders. However this can cause conflict between individuals and create a fosty atmosphere especially when we are all professionals in the same area but have different views. The positives is that it creates a small debate that lots of information and view points are thrown into. If i were to do it again i would conduct it with different groups of people ie all school teachers, all T.A's and compart the two notes i gather.

Carring out all these different tools has got me excited about my research laying ahead. It has helped me to identify what works best in certain situations and what doesnt, what information and knowledge i get best from and so forth. Its also helped towards my inquiry plan and how i plan on carring it out.

Task 6a

So here we go, the last leg of module 2....

At first when looking at other peoples blogs, i though oh my god, this is going to be one loooonnnggggg process but actually after reading the reader i feel quietly comfident as some of these tools i use on a day to day basis or have used in the past during my work and higher education experiances.
First i will tell you how i intent to carry out each of these 'pilot' tools based around my lines of inquiry then i will evaluate how each of them worked and what information i got from them.

Observation
The observation method i will use for this is called a narrative, well thats what we call it in a school environment. It will be written at the time and exactly what is happening. For this type of observation no assumtions are allowed to be made for example "billy is happy" it will be exact "billy is smiling and laughing with a group of children". I plan to observe the teacher during story time then i will observe the child during story time so that i analyse both parts of the event.

Interview
I plan to have an face to face interview with the teacher that i work with. I intend to use the semi-structured method with the theme of summer born boys. This will ensure that the interview is not to structured and the teacher feels she can talk about other things that link into this subject.

Survey
For my pilot survey i intend to do a quesionaire. Having done a few questionaires in the past, i feel that i am condifent in using them as a source to provide evidence and findings. It also enables me to ask a collection of different people with different experiances. I intend to ask "what effect do you think it has on a boys learning when he is born in the summer months of the year and is the youngest to start an academic year?" "Do you think girls are genually more mature than boys, explain why you agree or disagree" "how do you think it can effect a boys learning if they are labelled as being less academic than girls"

Focus Group
I plan to conduct a focus group with a few students about a particular issue that arises in a school environment. I will start the conversation by making a strong statement and allow the discussion to take its own course.

Update......what do you think?

I just wanted to give you all a little update on what iv had to do recently as i thought maybe some of you are heading in the same or simialar direction as we are nearing the end of this degree.

Recently i have started to apply to do the new school direct course, which used to be the GTP. For those of you that dont work in a school environment, this is basically a salaried teacher training course. Since Oct 2012 they have changed the requirements for getting on the course. You have to have at least 3 years working experiance, have above a 2.2 in your degree, complete a skills test exam and have grades c and above in english. maths and science. Basically they have made it harder for people to get on to the course.
Since working in a school, it has made me realize just how much i absolutly love my job and my ultimate dream would be to become a primary school teacher, preferably in nursery or reception. I absolutly adore this age group and truely believe that in those first few years of a childs life you can dramatically change their future. I am incrediablly passionate about providing children with the skills, learning and experiance they need in those early years. This including providing the support for parents to ensure that they have the knowledge to support their childs learning.

To do this course you need to have GCSE's in english maths and science. Unfortuantly i got a DD in science when i was back at school which means i will most probably have to do it again and it could jeperdise my applications i have put forward. Only then, when reflecting on why my grade was low, it dawned on me just how important it is to have teachers in your school life that make you strive to get good grades.
It made me realise that we need to be taught by people who beleive in us and adapt their teaching to ensure that we are meeting our potential.
Its only now when i think this could possibly affect my future career that i think i wish i would have worked harder...... what do you think? do you think we should be blamed for our failers or is it the people who are suppost to be possitive influence that are to blame?

5d

So orignally i thought that i could name the tittle of my degree based on what i had enquired on for the rest of my modules and what i have based my professional practice on, which was early years. However i was wrong, which i was shocked and slightly disapointed about. I understand that you cant just call it something that u havent looked into all areas of  but now i sort of feel in limbo..... i have to decide and think of a tittle that is best going to describe my knowledge and be of an advantage for my future career, which many of you can all agree that it is probably one of the hardest and most stressful things to do.

Anyway onwards and up, life doesnt always go the way we expect or want it to so we have to work with what we have got.
With onwards going research in what i want to inquire into, i have though about what i need to do to ensure that i am ethical when conducting the inquiry.
Here i will list how i am going to do this:

• Ensure that the identity of the children are always kept confidential for obsrvations, pictures etc. (this meets the safeguarding act for children in schools)
• Ensure that the children are kept unaware that there participating is being observed or behaviour is being followed.
• Create activites that may be carried out are going to be fun and exciting for the children to ensure the best possible and accurant results.
• Never to interupt learning or carpet time.
• To ensure that any activites carried out are short so the children are not missing their free time.
• To not distrupt the flow of the classroom.
• I will ensure that the teacher is aware of my inquiry, why i am doing it and what i plan to do.
• To Plan in advance (week/2 weeks before) so if need be can be added into planning.
• I will ensure that my inquiry will not distrupt/prevent me from carrying out my job role.
• I will only gather data based on what the actual outcomes are.
• When collecting data from other professionals i will ensure that i am not pushing for certain answers, putting presure on them to help me with my inquiry ie lots of questions etc.
• I will collect data from lots of different individuals, including people i work with in different roles, newspapers, internet.

I feel that these will possibly change when i no exactly what i plan to inquire. I look forward to being able to look back and see how much this could change depending on what root my inquiry takes me.