Early Years Learning Resources

This could be a young person’s first experience of being part of a group away from their family. They might not understand rules and routines so be patient, consistent and keep things simple. 

Start by setting expectations for turn taking, sharing, walking, talking, listening, and sitting. Once you've made these clear, you'll only need to remind them of the rules and routines.

Here are some more tips:

• Use a code of conduct to set out rules: make it more visual to allow for young people who can’t read yet.
  
  
• Never skip your opening or closing routine – if an activity is overrunning at the end of a session, end it so as not to run out of time and skip the closing routine. 
  
  
• Instead of demanding that younger children follow rules, make personal contact (a touch, eye contact) to reassure and redirect them if they are acting out - this age group react better to positive guidance instead of being told off.
  
  
• Involve young people, especially older ones, in creating rules and routines. For example, if the group is too loud, ask “Is everyone being nice and quiet or very loud?” When they respond, ask them “What’s wrong with being too loud?” They’ll feel empowered and it will increase their self-confidence.
  
  
• Embed routines throughout the session – for example, you could always use songs when you want to go from tidy up time to home time.
  
  
• Give young people jobs such as tidiness inspectors (with funny glasses or hats) to empower them to maintain rules themselves.
  
  
• Involve parents – explain to them that it’s important they encourage their child to follow rules and take part in routines.   
  
  
• Buddy up younger young people with older ones so that one acts as a role model for the other.

Deep Dive

Further information on rules and routines can be found below:

• Read more about ages and stages and how this impacts setting rules and routines
• Read more about building better behaviour in Early Years teacher's blog
• Read a case study of how structure and routine support good behaviour in Early Years

Celebrate difference

Use an 'all about me' activity and positively comment on individual differences. Show pictures and tell stories which refer to a range of family types. Reinforce the message that every family is unique but what makes a family is the same: love. Comment positively on similarities and differences throughout your sessions.

Create a welcoming environment

Keep a diverse range of dolls, stories and costumes for young people to play with. Positively comment on all choices that they make on their own. What if a boy chooses pink to paint with and another teases him? In front of them both, comment positively on the choice. Model your acceptance to other young people.

Use inclusive language

This is not an easy thing to be mindful of but it is important that you don't use biased language. For example, consider using terms like ‘the grownups’ or ‘the adults’ at the end of the session. Using ‘mummies and daddies’ reinforces a message that a young person must always have a mum or a dad.

Challenge stereotypes

Stereotypes affect young people's choices and aspirations. They affect the subjects they choose and the careers they aspire to. Choose content that doesn’t conform to traditional stereotypes. For example, stories with male nurses or female firefighters. Positively comment on non-stereotypical attributes of characters in stories. For example, 'The princess is so brave!'

Deep Dive

Further information on creating an inclusive setting can be found below:

• Read more about inclusion in Early Years
  
• Read more about inclusive practice from the Early Years Foundation Stage
  
• Read about challenging stereotypes in Early Years in this blog
• Read about celebrating difference in the Early Years childhood sector
• Extend your learning by taking this Open University course on 'When do children develop a sense of gender?'

Four and five year olds have a lot of energy. They could become very excited and seem out of control. Rather than try and stop them, it’s important to make sure they do this safely.

There is more risk when changing from one part of the meeting to another. For example, at the beginning of a session, young people may rush to enter the venue. Similarly, when going indoors or outdoors, young people may get flustered or tired carrying things in, leading them to get in each other’s ways and fall over.

In addition, when running a more challenging activity such as an assault course, there's a risk of young people getting into accidents.

It’s really important that you engage helpers and young leaders as much as you can. Assign parents/helpers to monitor smaller groups of young people, whilst a leader-in-charge can monitor the larger group and react when needed. 

Here are some more tips:

• Risks associated with the venue will be largely fixed from week to week and your team should be briefed on these. You could record them on a printed risk assessment, check them every week and initial the form.
  
  
• Risks associated with the planned activities should be assessed before the meeting.
  
  
• These risks will vary depending on the needs of your young people.
  
  
• Make sure the whole team and parents are involved in assessing risks. Parents should be made aware of their responsibilities such as closing doors/gates behind them and not letting strangers into the building; and also encouraged to report any potential hazards to the team.
  
  
• Make sure everybody in the team is familiar with risks typically associated with this age group – e.g. slips, trips and falls. 
  
  
• Make sure parents have completed emergency contact details and medical forms. Regularly communicate with parents so that they know what is coming up in the next session to flag any unknown risks. 
  
  
• If you’re planning more challenging activities, arrange to have a higher number of adults present.

Deep Dive

Further information on assessing risks can be found below:

• Read more about slips, trips and falls in Early years
  
• Read all relevant risk assessment templates for the Scouts

The Early Years Foundation Stage sets out four principles for early years providers to follow: 

• Children learn and develop best in an enabling environment
  
  
• Children are unique, learn constantly and can become resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
  
  
• Children learn and develop best in different ways and at different rates
  
  
• Children learn strength and independence from positive relationships.

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility and everyone should act to respond to any concerns about the welfare of a child. Everyone in the team should have a copy of the Yellow Card, which:

• sets out a code of behaviour for all Adults in Scouting
  
  
• provides guidelines on what to do if a young person tells you they are being abused
  
  
• gives guidelines on what to do if you are concerned about the welfare of a young person

If you have any concerns about a young person's welfare, contact the Scout Support Centre on 0345 300 1818 or safeguarding@scouts.org.uk.

Deep Dive

Further information on safeguarding in Early Years can be found below:

• Read blog posts written by other Early Years practitioners on different Safeguarding topics 
  
• Read more about creating an enabling environment in Early Years
• Read The Scouts Safeguarding Policy
  
• Complete The Scout Association's Safeguarding training

• Use activities which allow young people to talk about their likes and dislikes such as Show and Tell

• Use activities in which they can talk about their feelings. For example, use a welcome activity where each young person chooses a face sticker which represents their mood.

• Review activities right after you finish them. You can ask them to hold up a happy face if they enjoyed the activity or a sad face if they didn't. Why not ask them to stand on one side of the room if they liked it or the other side of the room if they didn’t? If you ask at the end of the session, young people might forget what they did.

• When organising an event, ask young people what they would like to see or what they think would be at that type of event. For example, "We are going to have a Pirate themed night, what do you think there will be to do? What do pirates eat?” Try to have these discussions in small groups to encourage discussion and support for those who might be shy.                                               

• Try to give them some more attention during activities to notice if they are enjoying them or not.

• You can also speak to their parents about what they enjoy doing at home. 

• Try to involve parents or carers to ask them questions to check if they liked an activity.

Reflect on your learning with a short quiz. There is no pass or fail and you can take it as many times as you like. This is a chance for you to reflect on what you've learnt.

Here you'll find discussion questions on this topic. There's no one size fits all at Scouts. The best way to learn is by asking others how they've approached things and trying them out for yourself.

Here are some common discussion questions on 'getting to know your young people' to post in your local group:

• How do you get young people involved in a meeting who won’t leave their parents side?
• How do you support the young people who do not want to take part in the opening and closing routines?

Get young people's attention with verbal, visual, and physical cues.

1. Use attention grabbers

Things like: “1-2-3 Eyes on Me” (while pointing at your eyes) or “Hands on top. Everybody Stop!” (while placing your hands on your head) are a way to get young people’s attention.

2. Be playful

Get attention with a dramatic voice, by putting on a funny hat, or playing a clapping game. You could also try holding up a secret hand sign for young people to copy or rolling a ball to them to keep them alert.

3. Be open and welcoming

Use young people’s names to get their attention. Engage them with facial expressions, such as smiling and making eye contact. Use warm body language – for example, don’t fold your arms.

4. Be patient

Give young people time to process your requests for attention. For example, remember that afternoons are low energy times for many young people and it may take longer to process attention-getting techniques.

5. Be aware of temperament

Some young people can be easily distracted or more impulsive. Speak clearly and calmly and use physical cues like gentle touches to keep them focused. Other young people are more reflective and may need a five-minute warning before they can change activity.

6. Think about learning styles

Notice which attention-getting techniques work best for different learning styles. For visual learners, try raising your hand. For auditory learners, sing a song to start cleanup. For tactile learners, pass a stuffed animal around the circle.

Deep Dive

Read about more attention-grabbing techniques

The quickest way to lose young people's focus is by giving instructions they don’t understand.

Here are some tips on the best way to instruct 4 and 5 year olds:

• Be clear and concise -  instructions should be short and to the point. The fewer words the better. A good guide is one word per year of life. For example, you can tell a five-year-old to "go get your shoes on". The instruction shouldn't have any vague words – for example, “Get the red-ish paper”.
  
  
• Give one instruction at a time -  when you give more than one, this age group may forget, not understand, or feel overwhelmed. If your activity has two parts - for example, going outside to light a bonfire and then toasting marshmallows - separate the instructions into two parts.
  
  
• Be realistic - give instructions that you know they can follow. This will become easier to sense as you interact more with this age group.
  
  
• Be positive - Let them know what you want them to do rather than not to do. If you only refer to the negative behavior - for example, "don't run" you still leave many other options open (skipping, hopping, etc.). Telling the young person what you want them to do – e.g. "walk, please." – doesn’t allow for other options.

Deep Dive

More information on giving instructions can be found below:

Following instructions in early years - research and tips

• fidgeting in their seats
  
  
• getting up, running around and yelling
  
  
• more confident young people will tell you they're bored

Deep Dive

More information on adapting activities can be found below:

Here are some filler activity ideas

• Make it clear that this is the young person's space. Adults can support young people, but shouldn't do things for them.

• Can you arrange the room so that there is a space for parents or carers at the back? You can then ask young people to invite parents or carers to get involved in specific activities. These could be designated 'zones' - that is, 'parent's zone' and an 'activity zone'

• Set expectations by giving out separate 'how you can help' guidance for parents or carers, helpers and leaders.

• If you've asked parents or carers to sit at the back, try not to ignore them. At the end of the activity, ask young people "Do you want to take it to show (parent/carer)?

• If parents or carers are involved in an activity, give young people tasks to promote their independence. For example, ask them to get the materials they need on their own. 

• If a parent or carer has helped their child a lot, try and nudge young people to take ownership. For example, say "Oh, wow looks like (parent or carer) helped a lot with that. Do you want to paint it now? What colour are you going to choose?"

At this age you can’t expect young people to organise a full session but they can do things like teach others in the group how to play a new game or sing a new song they have recently learnt. Involving young people in planning is crucial for their development.

• Give them some responsibility: for example, give them tasks to do like helping a leader to set up or demonstrate an activity.
  
  
• Review your plans with young people: at the end of the meeting line them up and say “If you really enjoyed today’s activities stand here, if you thought they were OK stand here and if you didn’t enjoy them stand here”. You could then ask them simple questions like what was the best part or what could be done better next time
  
  
• Tell young people when you’ve listened to them and planned something you know they’ll like by saying things like “We’re doing this because you asked for it”

Ask helpers to support you to review activities with young people. Some young people who are more shy may not shout out their answers, but may be more comfortable talking about what they liked or didn’t like in smaller groups.

Deep Dive

More information on involving young people in planning can be found below:

Here are some more tips on involving young people in planning

• How to build a child-led approach into an activity from the Programme Planning tool? Put the materials out and let young people adapt it as they want to.

• Try to incorporate child-led play before the session starts. Young people will arrive at different times. Put out a mat with toys and other resources and let them play with no instructions.

Songs

Using songs presents opportunities for young people to learn and develop in the prime areas of Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

Top tips for using songs during meetings:

• Ask your young people what their favourite song is.
  
  
• Use songs for a particular purpose e.g. hello, goodbye song or tidy up song.
  
  
• Sing songs that also involve sounds, this supports young people that are less confident in singing to join in with the sounds.
  
  
• Sing songs slowly so that young people can listen to the words spoken rather than it sounding like jumbled up words.
  
  
• Sing songs that are familiar to children as they need lots of repetition.
  
  
• Communicate with parents or carers the songs you are singing so they can share these with young people at home.
  
  
• Use props such as puppets during the song.
  
  
• Create a song bag so that when young people see someone getting this bag they know it’s song time.
  
  
• Use musical instruments to accompany songs.

Stories

Storytelling inspires imaginations and helps language development.

Five top storytelling tips:

• Make eye contact with young people and have fun and smile.
  
  
• Use gestures as you describe actions using your hands and your whole body.
  
  
• Use repeated words for effect: “He laughed and he laughed and he laughed!” This encourages young people to join in on the third word.
  
  
• Repeat sentences “Is he under here? No. Is he under here? No”. Again young people will join in once they know what to expect.
  
  
• Use different voices for different characters.

Play

Learning through play is one of the key principles of Early Years education.

Here are some different kinds of play you can incorporate into your meetings:

1. Construction Play

Activities such as counting bricks, measuring weight and moving objects make a difference to the way young people think and complete tasks.

2. Role Play

Playing with props, actions and situations young people create stories and scenarios.

3. Creative Play

This involves young people creating things using their bodies and materials, like clay. They can share their feelings, ideas and thoughts by creating things. Creative play helps to satisfy children’s need for self-expression and helps them to develop manual skills.

Deep Dive

• Choose content that helps build their vocabularies, count, and learn about the world. For example, facts about plants and animals.
• Choose content with clear lessons about social and emotional skills. For example, being kind to others and waiting one's turn.
• Include concrete over abstract ideas. This age group learn better from things they can experience, see, and feel.
• Choose scenarios that are relatable to make it easier for young people to understand.
• Young people may find characters from other countries or using other languages confusing. Especially if it is an animated show. If you can, point out connections to their world. Also ask questions to check that young people are making sense of what they see.
• Choose content that supports school-readiness, including social-emotional skills such as self-control.
• Be careful with content that tries to teach positive lessons using negative examples. For example, a sibling learns to love her new brother after she's shown being mean. Four year olds might find this confusing. It could also have the opposite effect, as young people may focus on the negative.
• Choose media that shows characters with diverse attributes
• Point out some of the positive, non-stereotypical attributes of characters. For example, "Wow, the princess is so brave!"
• Comment positively on interracial interactions in stories or on-screen.  

There is a new section of The Scouts site dedicated to helping volunteers to plan activities.

The programme planning tool aims to make it simpler and faster for leaders to find new, exciting and safe activities

Deep Dive

Have a look at programme planning guidelines

Reflect on your learning with a short quiz. There is no pass or fail and you can take it as many times as you like. This is a chance for you to reflect on what you've learnt.

The best way to learn is by asking others how they've approached things and trying them out for yourself. There's no one size fits all at The Scouts.

Here are some common discussion questions on 'planning challenging sessions' to post in your local group:

• Every young person in my section is very shy. How can I plan according to their needs?
• What's worked well in adapting activities from the programme planning tool to make them 'child-led'?
• What songs have you been using in your sessions and where can I find them?