Early Years

Expectations for all settings

Practitioners support children with their Personal, Social and Emotional development.

What this may include/ look like

• Develop positive relationships with families and recognise that behaviour can be different at home and in the setting.
• Support children to build trusting, responsive relationships with key adults who understand and respond to children's emotional needs.
• Ensure warm, responsive interactions are embedded throughout the day, prioritising connection and modelling calm, consistent responses to promote predictability, safety and fairness.
• Create a secure and inclusive environment through consistent relationships, predictable routines and clear structures, supporting children to feel safe, develop a sense of belonging and engage in learning.
• Recognise that all behaviour is a form of communication and seek to understand the reasons behind behaviour when planning next steps.
• Support children to develop social skills through opportunities for turn taking, sharing and collaborative play, with adults modelling positive behaviour and clear expectations.
• Promote emotional development by acknowledging and naming feelings, exploring links between emotions, body responses and behaviour, and providing opportunities to express feelings in a range of ways through play, stories and discussion.
• Provide opportunities for choice, autonomy and engagement by planning experiences that reflect children's strengths and interests, are developmentally appropriate, and encourage exploration, managed risk-taking and enjoyment.
• Create an enabling environment that is structured, organised and calm, with opportunities for movement and sensory input, and flexible pacing to support sustained engagement.
• Consistently model positive relationships and behaviour, using specific praise and reinforcement to support children's self-esteem, while valuing effort and persistence.
• Support children to understand expectations and reflect on behaviour through shared experiences, discussion and developmentally appropriate restorative approaches.
• Ensure simple emotional regulation strategies are modelled and embedded throughout the day, with a focus on co-regulation.
• Ensure that staff work with CYP and their family to support positive toilet training.  Comprehensive advice and guidance can be found on the ERIC website.

For some children the following strategies will be beneficial:

• Staff should consistently apply behaviour management policies, in liaison with parents/carers using photos/visuals to encourage desired behaviours, shared with home, and maintaining daily contact with home (e.g. with home/setting diaries).
• Ensure all staff follow agreed behaviour plans or strategies (e.g. reducing all language when a child is in distress).
• Ensure that transitions and reunions are prepared for and supported.  Be aware that some children may require additional support and time to separate from a family member at the beginning of the day and consider using a transition object to support with this.
• Use visuals to support waiting and turn taking (e.g. photos of the children to show whose turn it is and when the child will get their turn).
• Use timers to show the child how long they have on an activity and when it will be coming to an end.
• Give the child opportunities for choice and decision making for example by using a choice board to provide some structure to free flow play (e.g. child chooses two activities to place on a first and then board).
• Gradually broaden a child's range of activities by adding to the choice board.
• Support a child to develop their collaborative play skills by starting with parallel play opportunities (e.g. playing alongside others) before encouraging collaborative play with a supporting adult and then gradually introducing more children.