Parents, Early Years and Learning : Parents As Partners in the Early Years Foundation Stage - Principles Into Practice

Getting parents involved in the learning of their young children in early years settings is critical: children learn from everything they experience, wherever they are and whoever they are with. The greater the continuity between home and setting, and the richer the learning environment in both, the more children will benefit. This full-colour book provides accessible guidance for practitioners, explaining why parents need to be involved, what can prevent parental involvement, how to build respectful relationships, and how to ensure that involvement is a two-way process. It features practice examples for working with children and their families and provides ideas for those embarking upon new projects. Contents......Page 7 Acknowledgements......Page 9 1 Introduction......Page 11 2 The Early Years Foundation Stage: Parents as partners......Page 15 Statutory Framework......Page 16 What parents do is more important than who parents are......Page 19 Why is the impact of home learning in theearly years so strong?......Page 22 Are some parents just not interested?......Page 27 Factors that impede involvement......Page 28 Parents’ experience of services......Page 29 5 Respectful relationships......Page 37 Knowing more about families......Page 39 Equal partnership......Page 47 6 Involvement at the heart of practice......Page 53 Sharing regular two-way observations and supporting learning at home......Page 54 Sharing educational aims and practice......Page 58 Making everyone feel welcome – reaching out......Page 62 PEAL model......Page 67 7 Practice examples......Page 69 Sharing observations, knowledge and practice......Page 70 Under threes......Page 86 Getting out and about with parents......Page 90 Taking learning into homes......Page 95 Involving fathers......Page 99 Transition to primary school......Page 101 The PEAL journey......Page 103 Learning into action......Page 110 Start a project, no matter how small......Page 115 Go on further training......Page 116 Appendix 1: PEAL practice example: Home visits......Page 118 Appendix 2:What does your setting do with parents already?......Page 120 Appendix 3: The PEAL team......Page 122 References......Page 125 Resources......Page 128 Index......Page 135 Getting parents involved in the learning of their young children in eraly years settings is critical: children learn from everything they experience, wherever they are and whoever they are with. The greater the continuity between home and setting, and the richer the learning environment in both, the more children will benefit.This full-colour book provides accessible guidance for practitioners, explaining why parents need to be involved, what can prevent parental involvement, how to build respectful relationships, and how to ensure that involvement is a two-way process. It features practice examples for working with children and their families and provides ideas for those embarking upon new projects. Solidly grounded in theory and practice, this book will assist practitioners to examine their setting and enable them to embed partnership with parents into their practice