Anne Stonehouse:
My name is Anne Stonehouse, welcome to the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework Practice Principle video series. The framework is for all professionals and services working with children from birth to eight years.
In the videos, you see each Practice Principle in action. It is important to remember that all the Principles intersect and overlap, combined they guide professional practice. This video should be used in conjunction with the Practice Principle guide on high expectations for every child. The Guide is on the Department of Education and Training website.
[00:01:00]
Every child can learn and develop. High expectations and encouragement are closely linked with children's agency and sense of capability. Children are capable of making choices and decisions from birth. Professionals with high expectations believe all children, can and will achieve. They have an open mind about each child's potential, learning and development.
High expectations for every child are crucial, because children tend to live up or down to the expectations of the important people in their lives. Professionals communicate expectations to children through their words and actions. The expectation of success is a powerful motivator for children, promoting resilience and willingness to work hard.
Today we'll be visiting several services, the professionals, families and children at these sites will help you consider high expectations for every child, and how this relates to your service.
[00:02:00]
Marlene Fox:
Children in Early Childhood Intervention Services, are usually there because they have a quite significant delay or disability, or they have needs that just can't be met within mainstream or universal services. But that doesn't mean that they don't strive for the best possible outcomes for themselves, that the staff working with them need to be having best possible outcomes for those children. And that's what families need to be able to be supported to do, and to find ways of supporting children so they can develop and meet their potential. So that we have high expectations for the children, but we also have high expectations for the communities in which they’re going to be moving on to when they get older.
Janani Nathan:
[00:03:00]
The goals I set for her since March, Grace used the toilet independently, and she achieved (this) by April. And Grace to use words or sign language to ask for help, because she used to, will stand there and won't ask at all. Now she will call help.
Joanne Richmond:
Sometimes a teacher would say, oh look it's all right, their child is on the program for students with disabilities. It's okay that they're not reading, but really it's not. It's what can we do to make sure that child can red, and that child can achieve their full potential. And that belief that with the right support, every child can learn and achieve.
Helen Walter:
[00:04:00]
Oh the philosophy fits beautifully with high expectations, every child is unique and we want to provide the best opportunity that we can for a child to succeed and feel part of the community and our society. And always look towards that, promoting that with parents and how we can improve that for a child. Give the child the best opportunity that we can, and it may be something that we could suggest, that the parent might not be aware of. Or simply highlighting what the child is already doing, and that he's moving towards achieving.
Anne Stonehouse:
Children experiencing vulnerability, achieve better outcomes when professionals have high expectations that support their achievement. Low expectations result from limited, inaccurate beliefs about their capabilities. Professionals reflect on power imbalance, discrimination, and disadvantage, and how these impact on children and families. Professionals need to be aware of, and challenge their biases or preconceptions about a child because of a diagnosis or label, age, language, family background, or even the area in the community the child comes from.
Wendy Jarvis:
[00:05:00]
We have pretty high expectations of our children here, the belief for me is that they can all succeed at something. It may be not be the same, or we do talk about it, it's not the same for every child. And we have some children who are aware that they're not quite up with the others, but we talk about different people can do different things at different times.
Liz Suda:
We were showing this video to children, and we had objects out on the tables, little resin blocks with tadpoles in them, and the life-cycle of the frog. And this was a 2 and a half year old, this was some of our trialing, and the child looking at this beautiful video, and the music is engaging and it's captivating and so on. And at one point, she ran to the table, she came running back with this resin, and held it up to the screen, and said ‘tadpole’. So I actually think that's where they are processing information, they're thinking about what they're doing. There is a lot of learning going on, all the time.
Anne Stonehouse:
[00:06:00]
All children have the right to actively participate in their own learning and development, including in decisions that affect them. Professionals acknowledge that every child will take a unique path in their learning and development. All children require different levels of support, some requiring more than others. Professionals put high expectations into practice when children have space, time, voice, and capacity to make a difference. This enables them to show ingenuity, creativity, and skills that may have previously gone unnoticed. There are many ways for children to participate and use materials and equipment, rather than there just being one right way. Having high expectation, includes acknowledging and strengthening children's sense of agency. By giving children the opportunity to express their views, and contribute to decisions that affect them.
Emma Buckler:
[00:07:00]
One day at kindergarten, we had a child that came in and he was outside playing, and he's got a very engineering way of thinking, but you sort of think it's at a level of a 4 year old that he is. But he believed that he could make a car-pulley cable car on two big planks of wood outside. So he said to me, could he please do that. So he went inside and got all the equipment that he needed, tied the knots, had a little bit of help here and there. But just was able to create this car-pulley and then discuss how it works, and what can you put in it, and how it goes. Things that were far beyond my expectation of a 4 year old, and so in saying that, obviously I've got high expectations but they still, every day, can exceed those expectations.
Janani Nathan:
[00:08:00]
We visited this, Jean-Paul Gaultier, his fashion exhibition in National Gallery of Victoria. And we visited this exhibition three times with family day care children, because some of the children showed really interest in their dressing, and the creativity in it. And especially Aisha showed a lot of interest towards it, so at the end I bought a mannequin, a child sized mannequin for her to practice her skills here by using the scrap pieces and recycled materials to dress it up. And her mum has seen it a few times, the way she dressed up the mannequin and she said to me, that she got that creativity skills.
Mel Simpson:
[00:09:00]
So we started to talk to the children about what learning they might need in order to make particular ideas real. That would make children's learning visible to both them and also their families. So we'd say, okay what's your idea, and they'd say to make a castle. And we'd say okay, what do you need, what learning? And they might say team work, and therefore they'd choose particular children. They might need creative, they'd choose to work in the resource centre, which is just where all our stuff is, such as boxes, sticky tape, all those kinds of arts materials. And then we'd come back to them afterwards and say, ‘Okay you made your idea real, what did you use?’ And they'd perhaps say concentration or problem solving and we might say, what made you think it was problem solving. And they'd say, ‘well I couldn't get the sticky tape to work’, and we'd say, ‘so what did you do?’
We really make children partners in their learning, and they get to make decisions and we have a learning leader each day. We ask that child, what's your responsibilities as learning leader, and that child's responsibilities are to solve problems that help children to make their ideas real. And we talk about that each day.
Sharyn Veale:
[00:10:00]
So we use a lot of really opened ended activities and lots of things available for children, so that they can help themselves, and as they move along, what they want to do. It gives children a chance to actually extend their own play, they don't need a staff member or somebody else interacting in their play to extend it.
They can easily access something, or find something that they need, even if it's another area. Then they can build from what they're going, and we've children do that with our Natural Block play. And they'll go to the construction area and find a cardboard box, or a piece of material, or something else that they'd like to add to it. Or make something that they can then put in to a different area, continue their play, or extend what their theme’s been and keep going for that. Having access to their own things allows them to learn from those skills, and to actually develop their own self-help skills.
Anne Stonehouse:
In order for professionals to recognize children's abilities, they need to have an image of children as capable, competent, and active participants in their own lives, right from birth. Every child can experience success, and be motivated to accept new challenges. Having high expectations has a direct positive impact on children's self-esteem and resilience.
[00:11:00]
Professionals can also influence other people's expectations for a child, including the expectations of families and other professionals.
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