I admit it...I am not the perfect Early Years teacher...

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Originally Posted by The Juggler

see to me that is a very restrictive set up for 2-3 year olds. at 3-4 they are perhaps more ready for this but 2-3 years in a class environment is very different.

I would dispense with set times for anything other than breakfast and lunch/nap. Can they freeflow in and outside when they want? circle time - well I would just do a story time for older children and let the younger ones come and listen if they want too and the teacher led activity _ i'd just have an adult at a table and let the children come when they want - if they want with no pressure to do it if they don't want to.:thumbsup:

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ikr??? I was telling one of the other staff member about being on this forum and how I knew from the beginning that, while what I wanted this to be an informative discussion on the finer points of EYFS, it would actually be me having to explain over and over about the enormous differences between Chinese education and EYFS.
Of course they can't free flow...:(
The parents insist on a structured English and Math time, where everyone must participate....the horror...the horror....

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Originally Posted by blue bear

The things that stand out to me are lack of snacks.
Outside time, why do you have an allotted time can the children not access the outdoors when ever they want, I have the outdoors set up just like indoors is set up daily.
The children don't socialise at home and are raised by grandparents, so no wonder they scream, I find screamers respond to a variety of techniques, these are some I use, not all of them work on all children.
Babe starts off glued to my hip, I play with child attached, child graduates to me knee, then alongside me but touching, the next to with a gap, slowly slowly increasing the gap and the time child spends unattached and the colds self confidence and social skills increase.
Times babe can't be on my hip I use a chair (bouncy chair, high chair or pushchair) child feels a bit safer enclosed and can watch what is going on but not touched by the other children.
I find they settle better out doors,sometimes that means pushing them around the garden singing to them, they concentrate on nature, wind blowing leaves, bird singing etc and it helps to calm them. Music in general quite often calms and reassures screamers,I had a baby who only stopped crying when the iPod was in the chair with him.
A calm quite environment or a busy enviornment can settle them, depending what they find familiar so it's important to find out from the family what they prefer.
Lots and lots of eye contact or minimal eye contact, depending what settles the child, sometime if they see you it reminds them mum is not there so sitting them on your lap facing away from you can help. Find out what they like playing with at home, I find pegs, plastic containers, shoes remote controls help as they are familiar from home.

I use the term babe for all under threes

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Sorry, neglected to mention 2 snack times.
Yes. These are some excellent strategies.:)
Thanks.

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Originally Posted by VeggieSausage

I do understand a little of the different culture of bringing up children in China as my sister in law in chinese and they have 2 boys. They are brought up, although are now living in the uk, quite differently to how we do. There is no emphasis on play in any way and toys are almost not approved of and presents put away, never to be got out again. My nephews are not socialised or encouraged to develop but must look lovely and almost kept babies for much longer. Formal education is what is important to her......my nephews are behind in many ways but are developing despite of their upbringing and are very sweet boys, i know my parents find this difficult. There is no such thing in their lives as days out or playing in the park although as my eldest nephew gets older (3 now) she is starting to see that he needs entertaining and has put him in whole day nursery care to start his education even though she is at home (went from 22 months). Luckily he does go to nursery I think as otherwise goodness knows what his social skills would be like, at home to prevent mess he is still fed by them etc :( When my sister in laws parents came over after the babies were born there was a real respect thing expected and the grandparents rather disapproved of my nephew running about, my sister in law found it very stressful and she was expected to be dutiful daughter when she had just had a baby.....the grandparents didn't know how to look after a baby as they had had a wet nurse to look after my SIL when she was a baby......sorry went off on a tangent....

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YES! That's it! That's exactly what's happening..only...on a school wide scale.
See my above reply to Juggler.

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Originally Posted by Maza

Children at that age are by nature very ego centric. The most important thing to the little three year old was his shoe - so that should not have been ignored! Why couldn't you worry about it 'now'? If you were late then the daily routine maybe needs looking at. You need to allow children lots of time to dress themselves or support them in dressing themselves (not sure exactly what the issue was with the shoe). If he had an issue (his shoe)then he should have been listened to, not dismissed like that. Was his shoe hurting him? Sorry, don't mean to sound harsh.

I think it is great that you are reflecting on your practice, seeing that something is not working and then asking for advice. As well as getting training, do keep coming on here, we all learn from each other! Would love to hear about your setting as you develop it! x

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Right. and of course, like any child-care veteran of 20+ years, I'm solid in my practice, I know what works and what doesn't and I get egotistical and offended if my teaching is questioned...however, once I got here....it was as if I didn't even have a resume...
All that was required was that I be white (and didn't show up drunk) So I've played that game for several years, now, I've been put in charge and all those cultural differences I could just ignore are at war with EYFS and I'm having to deal with them directly....:panic:

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Originally Posted by sarah707

Can you get on any early years training? They really are very different to manage than older ones as you are finding...

Welcome to the forum :D

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Hi again Sarah,
If you'll check some of the other posts, you'll get a better picture of what I'm dealing with.
I've got 20+ years in the teaching/child care field so training isn't really the issue.
(Besides such things do not exist in this magical land...hahaha)
However, one of the other members DID find me an EYFS text in Chinese and I immediately sent it to all my teachers.
Since you're the Queen of Le Forum, would it be any trouble to look around the Isles and find some more
EYFS stuff in Chinese?
That would be super-mega-mega helpful!
Thanks much

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Originally Posted by ChinaEYFSguy

ikr??? I was telling one of the other staff member about being on this forum and how I knew from the beginning that, while what I wanted this to be an informative discussion on the finer points of EYFS, it would actually be me having to explain over and over about the enormous differences between Chinese education and EYFS.
Of course they can't free flow...:(
The parents insist on a structured English and Math time, where everyone must participate....the horror...the horror....

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The trick to handling the parents, I think, is to not change anything, but just explain your activities to them in educationalese.

For example:

Children practise their fine motor skills, focusing on pen control, and learn basic colour theory = Colouring.

Children learn to work together, with a focus on learning to differentiate between different tones and pitches, as well as different cultures = Music (if you're singing english nursery rhymes you could also add that they're practising their foreign language prounciation while they're at it).

If you can't have free flow between indoors and outdoors, you can at least have some sort of free flow between activities. What about a nature table to help children keep some kind of contact with the natural world?

Could you take the children on a walk at least? (I don't know where you're working, so obviously air quality and city crowding could well be an issue for you!)

Would it help at all for you to compare the way you want things to work to how things are done in Hong Kong, which has well established Early Childhood Education training?

I would love to know some more details about your setting, I find the development of ECE in other countries fascinating.

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Originally Posted by Jiorjiina

The trick to handling the parents, I think, is to not change anything, but just explain your activities to them in educationalese.

For example:

Children practise their fine motor skills, focusing on pen control, and learn basic colour theory = Colouring.

Children learn to work together, with a focus on learning to differentiate between different tones and pitches, as well as different cultures = Music (if you're singing english nursery rhymes you could also add that they're practising their foreign language prounciation while they're at it).

If you can't have free flow between indoors and outdoors, you can at least have some sort of free flow between activities. What about a nature table to help children keep some kind of contact with the natural world?

Could you take the children on a walk at least? (I don't know where you're working, so obviously air quality and city crowding could well be an issue for you!)

Would it help at all for you to compare the way you want things to work to how things are done in Hong Kong, which has well established Early Childhood Education training?

I would love to know some more details about your setting, I find the development of ECE in other countries fascinating.

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Yah. The real problem is the parents. They are afraid that their children won't be prepared for elementary school and, because it's a "private" school
all it takes to change school policy is a single phone call from one of them.
Thanks for the link. I'll write to Sue immediately.
What I really need is an "EYFS for Dummies", in Chinese, so they'll get it, the teachers will get it and everyone will be working for the same goals.
We're outside the city proper, (though sometimes it feels like this city just keeps going forever)
We're back in a HuTong area so traffic is fairly minimal.
The school has 3 main buildings. Unit 1 and 2 are the local kids.
Our unit contains The international department, infant care and toddler classes.
There are 3 small play areas outside. One of which is a brick wall maze that looks great...except it's brick...its functionality is 'meh'
The other two are gym sets, climbing, slides etc. One is wooden, the other plastic.
Next to each of these are open areas "suitable" for running games.
I use quotes because these folks are afraid to just let their kids run freely.
A skinned knee causes an uproar! A bump on the head has parents threatening to leave the school.
They haven't understood the concept of "risk assessment".
Thanks again,
Gotta go...

Paint the brick! Put different textures and activities up along it at different points (a panel of fake turf, some mirrors (maybe eve distoring ones like you get in a funhouse), a water wall for them to pour water through (something like this), etc)

Can you get some rubber matting to put down on the harder surfaces to try and pad them a bit? What about growing seeds and plants?

Take the older kids out for a walk once a day, to give the younger children a break and use up some of the energy of the older ones. You can play spotting games along the way. (Who can see something red? What are they selling in the shop? etc). It will get them practising their observational skills.

When the parents sign their children up, or come for a tour (if they do that kind of thing?), explain to the them that children need to properly exercise because it helps their brain to develop. Do you have first aid training? Show parents first aid equipment and any risk assessments you've done, and explain to them that sometimes accidents happen but you and the staff are prepared and trained to handle them in a professional manner.

Maybe if you link what they learn in elementary school to what you're doing in the nursery then parents can see how the two will connect. ("We play pattern spotting games because it will help them to spot the patterns in hanzi more quickly, when they start to learn them at elementary school", "We sing songs because it helps them to practise hearing different tones so they can learn other languages more easily" etc). Document children doing this so you can show potential parents.

I've had a look, and there basically isn't any EYFS stuff in Chinese on the internet, but there is this, and you can use this website to translate English webpages into Chinese. (It's not very good with PDFs, though that might also be because my computer isn't really set up to handle hanzi...)

The only other thing I can suggest is just getting someone to translate the documents for you into Chinese. All the EYFS stuff is easily available to download online, so at least if they had access to a translated version the staff could get some kind of understanding of what you mean.