Creating individual early education plans
The Individual Early Learning Plan in FinlandWay Early Childhood Education
During this course, you will be learning to understand the meaning of individualized and supportive early education.
Following the FinlandWay approach and the Finnish educational philosophy, every child is valued and respected as a person. However, in school young children are participating classes as a group. Therefore teachers might find it challenging to support individual children, and take into account their personal needs, strengths, and positive aspects.
That is why the Finnish Government and Ministry of Education launched a process in 2018 during which teachers were trained to complete individual early learning plans for children’s early childhood education, in cooperation with parents. Based on this, teachers were trained to create an operational plan for class, based on the curriculum and the children’s individual ECE plans.
Below you can see an overview of the process of planning pedagogy with individual ECE plans.
The FinlandWay “Individual ECE Plan” –course consists of three sections, presented below.
The first section, Focusing on the Child, explains why children and their parents should be seen as participants and active agents of early education. In this section, teachers will learn to create an individual ECE plan for each child in their class, together with parents. The section includes three parts.
Child in the center of the education – Where teachers reflect on the child’s role and participation in education and gain insight into supporting the child’s behaviour management and language development.
Using the personal early childhood education plan – Where teachers create an individual plan for each child.
Partnership with parents – Where teachers consider different aspects of parental cooperation and have a discussion with parents using the FinlandWay parental discussion form.
The first section needs to be completed before the start of the third period of FinlandWay, preferably earlier.
The second section, Planning the Pedagogy, focuses on the Pedagogical Group Plan. It is a yearly plan for pedagogy, practices, interaction, and organization of the learning environment. This section contains one part which is described below.
Pedagogical Group Plan
The Pedagogical Group Plan serves as a supportive document for teachers when they plan and implement the curriculum, organize children in small groups, and offer personalized assignments and support for children during the FinlandWay daily lessons. The teachers create the Pedagogical Group Plans in collaboration with the coordinators.
The Pedagogical Group Plan is a tool to be used on daily bases. It serves as a checklist and a reminder for the teacher. It should be extended and updated continuously during the school year. The Pedagogical Group Plan supports the teacher to scaffold the children in their classes; to offer them systematic and ongoing support.
The second section should be completed before the start of the third period of the FinlandWay program, preferably earlier.
The third section focuses on Pedagogical Reflection, Evaluation, and Development. In this section, teachers complete a yearly evaluation based on their Pedagogical Group Plan. They reflect on their professional development and methods and give collegial feedback.
This section includes three parts.
Evaluation and Reflection – Where the teachers assess their pedagogical process and development and give feedback to their colleagues.
Partnership with Parents 2 – Where teachers organize the second discussion with parents and give an overview of the child’s learning and development to them. The discussion is based on the individual ECE plan completed in the first section.
Concluding the pedagogical process – Where teachers have individual meetings with the coordinator and reflect on their professional development. In this subsection, there are also additional exercises for facilitating discussion withing and between teams of teachers and assistants.
You can open the course content below.
When you have studied a part, please remember to press ‘Mark complete’ at the bottom of the page.
Recent Comments