Child Safeguarding

The government describe safeguarding as: 
                                                                "The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully."

 Some facts that you might not have known- 7 per cent of children suffer serious physical abuse at the hands of their parents and carers.
                                                                 -  52 per cent of one-year-olds are hit weekly, or more frequently, by their parents.
                                                                 - 11 per cent of children aged under 16 experienced penetrative sex, oral sex or attempts  at these, against their will, by people known but unrelated to them.

                                                                 - Each week at least one child dies from cruelty.

 The safeguarding legislation is set out in The Children Act (1989) and (2004) which also features in the United Nations Convection on the Rights of the Child. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 provides a list of people who are barred from working with children and vulnerable adults.

Early Gender Socialization

Gender Socialization starts from birth and as we grow we learn the cultural roles according to our sex.  Boys and girls are immediately treated differently by members of their environment and as we grow we learn the differences between boys and girls, men and women.

I found such information on the unicef website:
http://www.unicef.org/earlychildhood/index_40749.html

I thought the website was really interesting and was quite informative! I also liked this youtube clip when they asked the children about their gender roles and what they are expected to like or wear associated with their gender.

The school child in the family!

The role of the family is very important in a child's life as they wouldnt be able to have enrolled in school, attend school regularly and participate in after school activities without the assistance of the family. As everyone knows school is vital to a child's learning and is a safe environment to do so when apart from the family.
   The family is needed to develope the child's knowledge, values and attitudes to survive a culture. Children who are healthy and protected from abuse and exploitation are better prepared to learn and are less likely to have difficulties with learning in the future. The family, whilst their child is in school, can then make sure that their child's needs and rights are respected.
   Most believe that there should be a partnership between parents and teachers so learning in school and after school can be assured. Also families are encouraged to create a favourable environment for girls and boys to learn equaly.


I have also found these 2 pdf's on google:

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh21-3/218.pdf
http://www.eurochild.ro/ecc/cursuri/lucratori_sociali/Ls6/content/chapter1.pdf

The highs and lows. . .

This is what my highlights and low points are since starting this course!


Highlights!

. Being accepted on the course
. Meeting new people
. Feeling as if im working towards something useful
. Support of peers n lecturers
. Not being able to be a couch potato
. Gaining more confidence 
. Trip to Warwick




Low points!

. Trying to balance out family life and student life
. Waiting to hear if i had a place
. Student Loan Company
. Organisation
. Family problems
. Presentations 
. Hearing my voice doesnt project well.
. Not being able to drive.
 

SEN!

I found a newsletter on SEN Policy:
http://www.snip-newsletter.co.uk/pdfs/downloads/senpolicy_early.pdf

Definition of Special Educational Needs:

Children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty, which calls
for special educational provision to be made for them.

Children have a learning difficulty if they:
·  Have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age,
·  Have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local education authority
·  Are under compulsory school age and fall within the definition above or would so do if special educational provision was not made for them.

Happy blogging x

History of Childhood!!!

Google key word search for websites relating to the history of childhood:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/childhood/
http://www.open2.net/theinventionofchildhood/childhood_inventions.html
http://www.elizabethi.org/uk/essays/childhood.htm
http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/research/clusters/history_childhood/

Summary of BBC

The website is made up of 6 episodes, dating from the 11th century to now, by the presenter Michael Morpurgo where he covers the invention of childhood. In the first episode, Michael explores the stories of medieval British Childhood like the arrival of Chirstianity, Normal Conquest, the Black Death and the introduction of printing affecting the children up until the 16th century.
   The second episode is from the 16th to the 17th century. This is when he looked at how children fared in the wake of the Protestant Reformation such as the impact it would have on the child's self-esteem. He also finds out about the growing educational opportunities for boys and the diminishing chances for girls in the 17th century and the impact of the Poor Law on disadvantaged children.
   The third episode is from the 18th century where Michael speaks of the first Foundling Hospital, the impact of 2 great parenting gurus and their battle over the nature and purpose of childhood.
   The forth episode is from the 19th century where Michael recalls the profound impact of the new Public Schools on children from better backgrounds while other children worked in mills, mines and living off the street. All before compulsory schooling in 1870.
   The fifth episode from the 20th century where Michael explores the impact of the Empire on children, the ones in Britain, the ones sent away to start new lives in Australia and Canada, and the ones who came from elsewhere to settle here and make new lives for themselves and their families. He also traces the surprising story of three how wars ultimately benefitted british children, leading to the establishment of our Welfare state.
   In the sixth episode Michael brings his story up to the present where he traces how the immense economic and cultural changes of the last fifty years has affected the lives of british children.

Here are some extracts about the history of childhood also from the Open University:

Ideas about the nature of childhood and about how best to bring up a child have changed in significant ways over time. It’s true that at any one point in time we can find people disagreeing about these issues, but in most periods of the past there have emerged dominant modes of thinking about childhood. We can think of these as inventions of childhood, new ways of imagining the key features of childhood.
The most significant of these inventions as they affected Britain I’ve described in six main sections. We should not, however, assume that parents necessarily followed the advice they were given. Quite often those who were setting out ideals were all too aware that day-to-day parenting differed sharply from what they regarded as best practice.

Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory!!!!

Cognition is how people think and understand.
Piaget broke down his theory into four stages:
.Sensori-motor stage
.Pre-operational stage
.Concrete operational stage
.Formal operational stage

Sensori-motor stage is from 0-2 years of age when the child explores his/her environment through their senses such as sucking, grasping and reaching out for objects. Object permanence also happens in this stage and this is when the baby can not understand that the object still exists when out of sight but when the baby reaches the age of about 9 months, they will understand that the object/ person still exists out of sight.

Pre-operational Stage is from 2-7 years of age when the child understands the use of symbols and language such as symbolic thinking like pretend play. They develop animism and egocentrisism at this stage also. Animism is when the child believes that inanimate objects have feeling like they do such as "bad table." Egocentrisism is when the child can only see from their point of view such as the mountain task when the child was given a picture of the mountains from above it and asked if it was the same mountain where the child answered no as the appearance had changed. The child could not understand that only the appearance of the mountain had changed, not the mountain intself.

Concrete operational Stage is from 7-11 years of age. This is when the child can now conserve. Coservation is the awareness that the quantity stays the same despite a change in its appearance. Blank & Rose criticised the age Piaget said children can conserve from as he asked difficult questions of the children and they might not have been able to understand the question completely so when Blank & Rose replicated the experiment with simpler questions, they found that the percentage of 6 year olds being able to conserve increased.

Formal operational Stage is from 11-16 years of age and the child now shows logical thinking and is able to work through problems without the presence of concrete manipulation.