Early Childhood Education Settings Assessment Answer

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Question :

Review the scenario provided, involving early childhood education settings. Examine the following aspects (covered within this subject) in the context of the scenario:

  • follow the guidelines for the establishment of a clean, safe and hygienic environment
  • plan and monitor supervision and care of children, including supervision provided by others
  • settle new children in to the environment
  •  outline the procedures and guidelines for infection control
  • the safe administration of medication
  • explain the regulatory safety guidelines with regard to food and drink provision
  •  the teacher’s role in managing and responding to signs of potential illness, threats of danger, emergencies and accidents and coordinate response
  •  explain the key considerations and responsibilities for the teacher in relation to monitoring  travel and an excursion

Scenario 1 

Caren is a Kindergarten teacher working in an early childhood service.  She runs a room of 20 four and five year old children with a trained assistant.  Samantha is a very dedicated teacher who does her best to promote children’s health, wellbeing and safety.  Today is a particularly busy day.  Timothy’s mother has arrived and explained that he will require penicillin medication half an hour before his lunch today as he has tonsillitis.  Caren is aware that Sabrina will be a new child arriving today and wants to make sure that her transition into the kindergarten is a smooth one for everyone involved.
During the day Caren notices that Jordan is not himself, she wonders if he is not feeling well and if he isn’t what infection control procedures she will need to put in place.  At lunch time Samantha, and the parent helper Zahidah, ensure that all the regulatory safety guidelines for food and drink provisions are maintained when they serve lunch.  In the afternoon Nicola was riding a bicycle on the bike track and crashed her bicycle into Luke’s.  Both children fell off their bikes and injured themselves and Caren had to implement actions for accidents.
Late in the afternoon Johnny fell to the floor and began jerking rhythmically. He appeared to have difficulty breathing and his eyes were rolling. Caren needed to enact emergency procedures.  
At the end of the day Caren reflects on her maintenance of a safe, clean and hygienic environment. 
Next week Caren is planning to take the 20 children for a walk to the local fire station and she will need to make the relevant preparations for this.  Samantha has also planned an evacuation drill for her service today.  


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Answer :

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION SETTINGS 

Introduction 

Development of safe and hygienic environments in educational institutions is helpful to support children's mental and physiological growth. The following discussion focuses on different processes and guidelines to safeguard children during early childhood in schools in relation to the case scenario. 

Guidelines for establishing a clean, safe and hygienic environment

Establishment of a clean, safe, as well as hygienic environment in educational institutions, is helpful for impacting on children’s mental and physiological well being. The guidelines as mentioned below-

  • Adequate space needs to be provided to children while reading and playing as it may be helpful to overcome suffocations.
  • Cleanliness needs to be maintained in classrooms and playgrounds by spraying anti-infectious green chemicals. 
  • In order to maintain hygiene, food and drink provisions must be protected and a sense of personal hygiene needs to be developed among students (Waschoolcanteens, 2020).

Thus, it can be mentioned that Ms Caren can be able to maintain the safety and hygiene of children by following these guidelines.

Planning and monitoring supervision and care of children

The planning and monitoring supervision process and care of children can be maintained by following the below-mentioned guidelines.

  • In order to plan for an effective children care process, it is necessary to analyze their nature at first. For example, Caren can be benefitted in child supervision process if she has the ability to know the basic characteristics of Timothy, Nicola and Luke.  
  • As mentioned by Lupton & Williamson (2017), effective communication has a direct impact on the maintenance of consistent children care and supervision process. In this respect, Caren can maintain frequent communication with other child carers of the institution such as Samantha and Zaidah.
  • In addition to this, a friendly relationship needs to be developed with children, so that the monitoring and caregiving process may face no barriers. It has been observed that Caren observed each of the children with great care and was fast to take care of them in every aspect. 
  • Not only this but also Caren was careful to supervise if other members such as Samantha are equally careful with children or not. This can be effective to provide 24*7 quality of parent-like care to children and monitoring the ways to take care (Mannay et al., 2019).

Settling new children to the environment

Setting new children into the educational environment needs to develop a positive image to their parents with a developed care process. In this regard, Caren was found to be aware regarding newly arriving child Sabrina into their kindergarten. Moreover, she did not want any type of misunderstanding and conflict situation during the transitioning process of Sabrina. Development of a healthy parent-teacher group and enhancement of activity levels of children in schools can be effective ways to settle new children (Colorín Colorado, 2020).

Procedures and guidelines for infection control

The educational environment needs to be hygienic and free from any kinds of infections as the immunity power of children is lower than adults. First of all, a teacher can make the children habituated regarding personal hygienic methods such as washing hands with soaps before eating. In addition to this, classrooms need to be disinfected from time to time (Infection Prevention, 2020). It has been seen that Caren was careful about whether Samantha maintained safety guidelines during lunch service. Along with this, the harmful impacts of germs and illness need to be told to children as a safety measure.

Safe administration of medications

In order to implement a safe medication system, Caren needed to be careful to analyze if any one of children has allergies over a particular type of medication. Besides, the right doses of medicines and providing them at right times can be helpful to treat children with safe medications such as in the case scenario Johnny needed safe administration of medications for breathing trouble.  

Regulatory and safety guidelines for food and drink provision 

In order to maintain healthy food and drinking system in schools, Government legislation regarding Food safety Act needs to be followed. In addition to this, cleanliness in school canteen must be maintained with proper sanitization and a food safety supervisor can be engaged in this process. Gloves and masks can be used in the school kitchen during serving food and drinks to children. As stated by Ko & Kang (2019), maintenance of health hygiene is essential to support the proper physiological growth of children from early ages.  

Roles of teachers in managing early childhood education environment 

Teachers of an educational institution are the pillars to build a healthy student. Hence, it is their duty to avoid and eliminate issues regarding illness, threats of danger, emergency injuries as well as accidents in educational environments. In the case study, Caren can be considered as an ideal figure to support the educational environment in early childhood. She was equally focused to maintain environmental hygiene along with maintenance of personal care for injuries of children. A sympathetic and understanding teacher is essential to respond to students' injuries and takes instant initiatives to provide first aid and medications (Meissel et al., 2017). Besides, a teacher needs to be friendly to support children to face any type of threatening situation in the educational setting.

Responsibilities of teachers for monitoring travel and excursion 

Not only in an internal educational setting, but also the efficiency of teachers is essential in terms of managing students in external educational environments such as excursion. In this respect, it is necessary to keep emergency medications in-store and guard the children while roaming about. In the case study, Caren needed to dress up the children in a secured manner for visiting local fire-station. Along with Caren, Samantha also planned for an evacuation drill as a part of the visit. Thus, it can be mentioned that providing immense care to children and safeguarding them from injuries are major responsibilities of teachers in the excursion.

Conclusion 

Thus, it can be concluded that an educational environment needs to be supported in all aspects of health safety and hygiene. It can be helpful to maintain the prominent growth of children during early childhood. In the scenario, Caren has been found to be careful in all aspects to develop early childhood educational system in her kindergarten.