As an early year professional, you obviously wish to ensure that the children in your setting receive the best possible care and learning during their time with you. This can be quite easily achieved by adopting a dedicated reflective practice approach to childcare. Reflective practice provides numerous benefits for children and parents, you personally and also your team and nursery.
Reflective practice is an excellent way to improve the quality of childcare and teaching in your setting. It can be used to:
- Ensure that children’s individual needs are being met and that their self-esteem is nurtured, encouraged, and increased. Also, to provide a stimulating, learning experience and interactive learning environment both indoors and outdoors. This will assist you to achieve better outcomes and progress for children.
- Reassure parents and carers that the trust they have placed in you is well deserved. They will see the changes and improvements in your setting and feel confident that the childcare you provide is of the highest standard.
- Allows practitioners to recognise their own personal strengths and also to identify any possible further training requirements. Identify your professional development needs, what is working well for you, your team and setting and how it can be improved. This should be an ongoing process to achieve childcare and education inspection excellence.
To assist you with reflective practice, the ILD system includes reflection functions for children, practitioners, and your setting environment. The Child and Environment functions can be accessed by all team members, however, practitioner reflections are stored privately for your own reference.