What is best practice to support self-regulation and resilience in…

20 September, 2023 —
Blog

What is best practice to support self-regulation and resilience in the Early years with a focus on the disadvantaged.?

What is best practice to support self-regulation and resilience in the Early years with a focus on the disadvantaged

Share on:

by Unity Research School
on the 20th September 2023

The Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage states clearly the expectations for children at the end of the Reception year.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

ELG: Self- Regulation.

Children at the expected level of development will;

Show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly.
Sit and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate responses when appropriate
Give focused attention to what the teacher says, responding appropriately even when engaged in activity and show an ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.

However, it is clear that self-regulation is an ever-developing skill, it is not something that can be ticked off at the end of a child’s Reception year.

What does the data tell us?

Progress made in closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers “may have ground to a complete halt”, according to a new report from the Education Policy Institute.

In its latest report, Education in England 2019, the education thinktank reported that there had been “no real change” in the average scores in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile between 2017 and 2018.

The report also warned that the attainment gap between children eligible for Pupil Premium funding and their peers did not change between 2017 and 2018 – in fact, it widened from 4.4 months to 4.5 months of progress

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Alliance, said: “We have warned the government for some time of the potential damage to social mobility because of the £662m funding shortfall in early years education.

“We already know that childcare providers in deprived areas are twice as likely to close as those in affluent ones – often because poorer parents cannot afford the voluntary extras or private hours that providers are forced to charge to make up for the lack of adequate funding. Not only has underfunding plunged the early years sector into crisis, today’s report shows how it risks harming the children who most need quality, early years education to keep pace with their more advantaged peers.

This means there is a definite need to provide the quality provision for those children within the disadvantaged groups within our schools and setting.

How can we improve this?

Self-regulation and resilience are both a key factor in part of all aspects of learning. Helping a child developing the Characteristics of Effective Learning goes had in hand with supporting their PSED skills.

How do we support children to;

Make connections
Make choices
Make links
Face challenges
Take responsibility
Think flexibly and critically.

Firstly, we need to identify the role of stress and its impact on a child’s capacity to learn. Stress can be positive or negative, apparent or hidden, physiological/psychological, internal/external, self-imposed or forced up on us. Stress can not be avoided , its how we learn.

There is evidence that positive changes to reverse negative stress effects can change developmental trajectories for children. Placing children in supportive environments will support those vital skills.

We need to reframe our thoughts about children’s behaviours. All behaviours are communicating something and it is key to identify the needs. Try to identify when it is a stress behaviour and when a child’s window of tolerance is closing. Think about why children are not coping.

Children need well-regulated adults. Children need to observe adults interacting in a calm and healthy way during all aspects of their day.

We need to provide opportunities to build warm, responsive relationships. Children need to spend time with their peers and begin to experience the joys and challenges of friendships. The ability to belong to a group.

We need to provide an enabling environment with structure in a predictable way that is physically and emotionally safe to explore and take risks. An environment needs to provide opportunities for intellectual and physical challenge. Children need to be able to push boundaries and learn new things. An enabling environment encourages independence, decision making and choices.

We can support self-regulation and resilience skills though modelling, suggesting strategies, providing frequent opportunities to practise, and scaffolding.