Thinking points What opportunities for continuity and predictability are there in your program? How do children have the opportunity to develop skills in using materials and equipment? What links are there between children’s learning from day-to-day and week-to-week? How as an educator do you help to create and reinforce those links? How much predictability is there in your program and routine? How do you create a sense of predictability and still keep things fresh and interesting? Team meeting notes In using this resource sheet as the basis for a team Continuity, connections and predictability are all meeting you might want to consider: crucial of effective early childhood programs. Implementing them in practice however often what opportunities for continuity and predictability already exist in your service? requires a light touch and the ability to be flexible while still maintaining a sense of predictability. This how you and your team feel the relative importance of change and predictability in your can be a challenging balancing act - one that requires program? careful and thoughtful judgement. It is not always easy to know whether a particular activity or experience the children and families that you work with and their need for predictability and stability. has reached its use-by-date and should be replaced or whether a slight tweak or addition to it may reignite Having read the resource sheet your team should children’s interest. Similarly it takes a skilled and have some idea about why continuity and observant educator to notice and point out links predictability are so important for children’s learning. between children’s current and past learning. Depending on how new this idea is to them you might
Thinking points What opportunities for continuity and predictability are there in your program? How do children have the opportunity to develop skills in using materials and equipment? What links are there between children’s learning from day-to-day and week-to-week? How as an educator do you help to create and reinforce those links? How much predictability is there in your program and routine? How do you create a sense of predictability and still keep things fresh and interesting? Team meeting notes Continuity, connections and predictability are all crucial of effective early childhood programs. Implementing them in practice however often requires a light touch and the ability to be flexible while still maintaining a sense of predictability. This can be a challenging balancing act - one that requires careful and thoughtful judgement. It is not always easy to know whether a particular activity or experience has reached its use-by-date and should be replaced or whether a slight tweak or addition to it may reignite children’s interest. Similarly it takes a skilled and observant educator to notice and point out links between children’s current and past learning. In using this resource sheet as the basis for a team meeting you might want to consider: what opportunities for continuity and predictability already exist in your service? how you and your team feel the relative importance of change and predictability in your program? the children and families that you work with and their need for predictability and stability. Having read the resource sheet your team should have some idea about why continuity and predictability are so important for children’s learning. Depending on how new this idea is to them you might