Quality of indoor and outdoor environment at QQ Kindergarten & Nursery

Published by: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published on: 8th October 2016

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION

 

One of the vital skills for educators in early childhood education is the ability to set up a good environment for children to grow, thrive in and learn.

For this assignment, students are required to assess the quality of indoor and outdoor physical environments of a nursery or preschool, against what is described in Topic 5 of the module.

In the study, students need to pick only ONE nursery or preschool.  Referring to features described in the module, develop an instrument to assess the indoor and outdoor environments in terms of their safety, cleanliness and adequacy in supporting the children’s holistic development. Explain the data collection method used in this study.

Summarise your findings in terms of the strengths and weaknesses in the school you have assessed. Suggest improvements you would make to support effective learning for children in that school.

Refer to the guidelines provided in the rubrics given below on the expected assignment content and the basis on which marks are distributed for the report.

[Total: 40 marks]

Introduction

It is widely conceived (as a fact) that young children are very inquisitive and active. They consider everything worth exploring in all their sense. This is also added to the fact that their minds and bodies are in a constant growth, at a pace that is considered phenomenal, as they develop neural connections that they will utilize in their entire life (North American Association for Environmental Education, 2010). Be it the taste of a carrot that has just been freshly picked from the garden, the sight of sunlight as the dew drops, or the sound of music that are made with some rocks they have discovered in the yard, young children are continuously making new discoveries and creating necessary connections that will last their entire life. At this early age, they begin to understand both their individuality and the individuality of other people; building relationship between themselves and other, as well as between themselves and the entire world surrounding them (North American Association for Environmental Education, 2010). As such, providing the necessary opportunities for the development and growth of the child, opportunities for development of a sense of wonder about nature, and the right room for earnest engagement in the whole process of discovery that revolve about the real world are considered fundamental in the learning process of early childhood experience. Thus, it is important that the environment for early childhood education programs are based on these foundation in order to help mold the child for the future (North American Association for Environmental Education, 2010).

In line with this understanding, this research paper is developed to analyze the importance of learning environment on the learning process for the children. As such it is divided into different parts. The first part is an introduction on the main objective the research paper aims to achieve. This is followed by a brief understanding of what early childhood education is all about. Coming after that is the importance skills necessary to effect qualitative process in early childhood education, followed by importance of quality environment on the learning process, analysis of the school environment (both indoor and outdoor) of the chosen school, detailed development of tools for such analysis, explanation of data collection method, and the SWOT analysis of the chosen school. All these understanding will help build a clearer view on what is expected (in terms of Dos and Don’ts) when it comes to developing the right environment for early child education.

For this research, the chosen school is QQ Kindergarten & Nursery. It is located at 232 Jalan Tuanku Haminah 4 Taman Tuanku Haminah Sungai Petani. Their description, they made known that they are into the business of providing early childhood education for those age between 3 to 6 years old (QQ Kindergarten & Nursery, n.d). Their main mission is to provide the children with a fun-filled learning environment where they can be able to develop holistically as a quality person in this world. This they hope to achieve by creating a practical learning programme which that can be used to educate the children to effective learn, easily socialize and laugh out loud from their heart. Their overall goals is to make sure that any children passing out of their care, have been molded towards becoming an important asset to the society.

Understanding early childhood education

Figure 1: Young Children at QQ Kindergarten and Nursery School during Outdoor Learning

Basically, early childhood education entails the educational activities geared towards preparing the young children towards a bigger future. There is a common saying “catch them young,” and this is the underlining feature that guides early childhood education. This is based on the understanding that whatever a child is taught at an early age, the child will conceive it as a norm and it will definitely guide the child’s entire life in terms of how such learning is applied in the child’s day to day activities. Early care and education programs are designed to serve the child from infancy down to five in different settings – child care center; family care homes; prekindergarten, (Pre-K); Kindergarten, Heart Start Classes and Nursery section (SCAA, 2012). Malaysia, these programs serve thousands of children per annum. Additionally thousands more are also served in legally-exempt (by friends, families and non-regulated cares) home-based care settings as well as private nursery schools (which is where QQ Kindergarten and Nursery school falls in). All child care, irrespective of setting, should be designed in such a way that it is affordable, easily accessible, and of the highest importance – offering high quality services and training to the children (SCAA, 2012).

Important skills for educations in early childhood education

The guidelines of the important skills necessary in order to effect qualitative learning outcome in children are introduced in the sociological research, an area where participation of children is considered key in terms of decisions and events that relates to the child’s life (Corsaro, 2011; Woodhead, 2006). This approach is of the view that the children should be studied and understood as subject of their own lives and not considered as the object of the education systems; which makes participation dynamic and environment in terms of individual concepts and shared competence instead of viewing it as a child’s property of a stable status quo (James & James, 2008; Smith, 2002). Thus, such skill must be able to allow participation that are related to the contextual society environment of the child and a culture that allows for interaction, shared meaning-making and expression of ethical issues in the daily lives of the child  (Berthelsen, 2009; James, James & Prout, 1998; Karlsson, 2012).

One of the theoretical framework that has influenced the research on understanding important skills for qualitative learning in early childhood education is Shier’s (2001) model of the Pathways to participation. This is a model that is based on five levels of participation, in which the educator (the teacher, parents or other adults) is charged with the responsibility of enabling participation in the children through commitment. Each of these levels demand three steps for such development. The first steps is to open a stage where adults are willing to work on such levels, followed by the second steps which is to an opportunity stage that allows the will to march with the needs for the level in practice; and the third step is the obligation stage where practices and processes of the levels in discussion are adopted at the organizational level and incorporated as a part of the system. According to Shier (2001), these three steps of adults are necessary at every stage of the child’s participation and learning. They also form the fundamental skills for effective teaching in early childhood education as:

1.      Educators must have the skill to listen to the children. What is conveyed here is that the educators must be very open to hear what the children have to say in their everyday interaction. Based on what have been gathered, they will need to effect necessary measures to eliminate any obstacle and create the right environment and practice for the children to be listened to, and the practice should translated into a duty for every staff to listen to the voice of the children (Jonna, 2016).

2.      The adult should always provide support for children to express their view. In this case, what is implied is that the educator must be open to ideas that support the views of the children (Jonna, 2016). They need to actively offer the right opportunity for the children to express themselves. Added to this, the idea of supporting the views and opinions of the children should be made part of the school’s policy.

3.      The educator must always be able to take the views of the children into account. What is implies here is that the children are not just expressing their opinion and ideas, but they should be able to know that their views have direct influence on the daily activities of the society (Jonna, 2016). This demands that the adults should think about how the views of the children can be taken into account. Followed by this, it is important to adopt necessary practices where the children are made visible and these practices should be made the everyday culture of the school or car center.

4.      The children should be involved in the decision-making process. Considering that the center and program are all about the children, the fourth skill requires that power issues in the society should be reconsidered in order to offer the necessary opportunities for children to participate when it comes to making decisions. That is to say, the educator need to first consider the idea of getting the children involved in the decision making (understanding what they need in the school environment), and then new policies related to such approach should be enacted into the care center or schools and make part of their internal law (Jonna, 2016).  

5.      Children should be accorded necessary opportunities to share both power and responsibility for the decision making. This is the final skill (steps) necessary when it comes to the pathways to participation model, and it deals with the children sharing power with the adults (Jonna, 2016). For the teachers, what is implied here is that they should first consider the power-issues in the care center and adopt the idea that would allow the children to join such practices. Additionally, it is important to develop new practical ways that can be used to share power between the children and the staffs if the need be, and these practices should be made part of the care center’s action culture.

Importance of quality learning environment in early childhood education

Most likely, when the issue of quality is raised in early childhood care and education, one can easily conceived that if the program is not of the highest quality, it is not the worst thing that could happen in the world. At least it should not be considered detrimental to the development of such child – right? That is wrong! (SCAA, 2012).

Figure 2: QQ Kindergarten and Nursery pupils being molded in career choice.

A child’s readiness for school is influenced directly by the child’s ability to meet the comprehensive needs, which include motor and physical development; literacy and language; emotional and social development; learning approaches; and cognitive development (SCAA, 2012). If the child enters school having deficit in any of these areas, it would be generally difficult for the child to catch up. In fact, although much of half of the school failure can actually be attributed to gaps in early care and development that were obtained before the child entered school, a child that started behind will most likely stay behind  (SCAA, 2012).

Findings from research have sown that high-quality intensive early care and educational programs can have huge and lasting positive impact on the children, such as higher success in school, higher rate of graduation, lower juvenile crime, and decreased need for special educational services later in their lives, as well as lower adolescent pregnancy rate. On the same note, low quality care have been found to have negative impacts on the child’s social development, language, and performance in school, which are very difficult to correct, with special reference to children in schools that have lower resources. The positive effects for high-quality learning and negative effects products by low-quality learning are at their greatest for children that are at a disadvantaged setting or those with special needs, but these children are still least likely to have necessary access to quality early care and education. It is also conceived that majority of the families do not have quality early care and educational options for their children within their immediate communities (SCAA, 2012).

Concepts of learning environment in early childhood education

Figure 3: A child during indoor learning in QQ Kindergarten and Nursery school

The concept of early childhood education as it relates to the environment where the child is acquiring needed care is based on three different approaches to early (1-8 years old) education (Bruce, 1997). The first approach is called empiricist which based on the understanding that the child is just an empty vessel that needs to be filled with information, knowledge and skill; or more like a lump of clay that need to be molded into the desired shape, which implies that once the child attains adulthood, the child must have imbibed into the value stream, attitudes and behavior that are considered norm in the child’s culture and society (Morrow, 1999). The second approach is called the nativist approach, and it views the child as one biological entity that has been pre-programed to act in certain ways (which is presumed to be determined by his genetic inheritance). As such, knowledge is considered inbuilt, and this view does not acknowledge the impact of external factors on the development of such child (Morrow, 1999). The third approach is known as the interactionist approach, and it is actually a combination of the nativist and empiricist approach as it does view the child partly as an empty vessel and partly as a pre-programmed entity (Morrow, 1999). As such, the learning environment must be the one that sees the child as an empty vessel (provide the right room for continued learning and development), and also as pre-programed entity (help enhance what the child already knows); which means that it must be interactional in its approach.

Instrument and data collection method

For every research, there are varied instrument that can be used. The choice basically depends on the form of research being undertaken. Basically, all researches can be grouped into qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research deals more with those that are designed to gather qualitative understanding from the research process. They go beyond the volume of respondent to the actual response provided by these respondents. On the other hand, quantitative research deals with the volume of response gathered (on the view that the more the response, the higher the quality of the research as higher response will generally imply higher representation of the populace).

The choice of research method is normally based on the objective of such research, in this case, the objective is to assess the indoor and outdoor environment of QQ Kindergarten ad Nursery school in order to understand the level of safety, cleanliness and adequacy provide by the school in these environments for the purpose of supporting the holistic development of the children.

As such, this can be considered a qualitative exploratory research. It is qualitative in the sense that it is geared to understand the environmental setting of the school (in terms of the quality of such environment), while exploratory aspect of the research is designed to assess the level of safety, cleanliness and adequacy offered by both the internal and external environment for the children receiving care in it. Thus, observatory research method was used in this case. The research went to the school to observe the actual environment – internally and externally. In order to avoid the chances of the research outcome being influenced, the researcher did not inform the school of the exact date for such observation (however, the researcher was granted access by the authorities of the school). The justification for this method is that it allowed the researcher to take necessary evidential pictures as a representation of proof and also to assess the school’s environment directly without being influenced by external factors that could impact the research outcome.

Analysis

Quality of indoor and outdoor environment at QQ Kindergarten & Nursery

Figure 4: A student learning inside one of the classroom at QQ Kindergarten and Nursery

From observation, the researcher noticed that the internal environment are exceptionally clean, featuring decorative walls that allow for quick and easy learning process. All the walls have different posters and writing that the children can learn from. For instance, 1+1 = 2, animal anatomy, states and their capitals, agricultural painting and other decorative learning tools.  The entire room is exceptionally clean, with dustbin scattered all over the room for the students to dispose their waste at easy. The siting is in a rounded dining table format, which allows the students to work as a team, and learn interpersonal skills. The rooms are exceptionally spaced, allowing the care giver / teachers to consciously monitor the activities of each child in order to ensure adequate level of safety for each child. The children are also grouped adequately and the researcher did not notice any form of compact that setting that could impede the overall learning experience for any of the child. The children are accorded necessary care and attention as if they are at their homes, with disciplinary measures coming in the form of soft caution and advices.

Figure 5: QQ Kindergarten and Nursery school’s external environment 

Just like the internal environment, the external environment is graciously decorated with learning acts, and extra care are taken to ensure that it is safe by eliminating the presence of any sharp object that could cause harm to the children. The school is privately fenced and located in a secure and friendly environment. The gate have opening for people outside to see what is happening inside the school. Offering the pupil much better security in terms of emergency issues. However, the spacing at the external environment (while being enough to accommodate the children and their activities) is not that big, and there are no recreational facilities (such as swing and other sports facilities) for the children to pray around. The justification for this could be based on the understanding that the school does not want any external materials that can harm the children.

SWOT Analysis of QQ Kindergarten & Nursery’s learning environment

Strength

The environment (both internally and externally) are clean and safe, providing adequate space for holistic development of the children.

Weakness

The external environment is not that big and there are no sports facilities in the premises.

Opportunities

The school is located in a safe and secured environment outside of the hassles and bustles of the city, and it is a fenced compound. This is an opportunity for attracting other children to join the school.

Threats

There are numerous other Kindergarten and nursery schools around, and this presents the issue of competition for the school.

Suggestions

Based on the findings, it can be said that the management has done a lot by adopting necessary measures to ensure that the environment is clean, safe and adequate. However, it was found that the external environment is not that much big and does not have any sports facilities. Thus, it is suggested that the management should look into that as sports can help the children build better understanding and coherence with each other – something that will need in the future.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be stated that the learning environment of the children have direct on the outcome of the learning process. That is to say, the better the learning environment, the better the learning outcome and vice versa. Thus, child care centers need to ensure that their environment (both internally and externally) are designed to effect quality learning outcomes.

Referencing

Berthelsen, D. (2009). Participatory Learning, In: D. Berthelsen, J. Brownlee, and E. Johansson (Eds.), Participatory learning in the early years: research and pedagogy, New York: Routledge. pp. 1–11.

Bruce, T. (1997). Early Childhood Education, Hodder & Stoughton, London.

Corsaro, W.A. (2011). The sociology of childhood. 3. edition. CA: Sage Publications.

James, A., James, C. & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Cambridge: Policy Press.

Jonna, K. (2016). Enhancing children’s participation in early childhood education through the participatory pedagogy. Available at: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/159547/enhancin.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed on, 6th-10-2016].

Karlsson, L. (2012). Lapsinäkökulmaisen tutkimuksen ja toiminnan poluilla [In the paths of child- initiated research and action]. In L. Karlsson, & R. Karimäki, (eds.) Sukelluksia lapsinäkökulmaiseen tutkimukseen ja toimintaan. Jyväskylä: Suomen kasvatustieteellinen seura. pp. 17–63.

Morrow, V. (1999). ‘”We are people too”: children’s and young people’s perspectives on children’s rights and decision-making in England’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 7, 1, 149–170.

North American Association for Environmental Education (2010). Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence. NAAEE Publications. Washington: USA. Available at: http://resources.spaces3.com/c518d93d-d91c-4358-ae5e-b09d493af3f4.pdf [Accessed on, 6th-10-2016].

QQ Kindergarten & Nursery (n.d). QQ Kindergarten & Nursery Tmn Tuanku Haminah. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/QQ.Tuanku.Haminah.SP/ [Accessed on, 6th-10-2016].

SCAA (2012). Quality: What it Is and Why it Matters in Early Childhood Education. Available at: http://www.scaany.org/documents/quality_earlyed_scaapolicybrief_sept2012.pdf [Accessed on, 6th-10-2016].