Contents

Question 1(a)................................................................................................................................................ 2
(i) Age appropriateness .......................................................................................................................... 2
(ii) Individual appropriateness ............................................................................................................ 5
(iii) Cultural / Social appropriateness .................................................................................................. 7
Question 1(b) ............................................................................................................................................... 8
ANNEX I ................................................................................................................................................ 12
ANNEX II ............................................................................................................................................... 14
ANNEX III.............................................................................................................................................. 15
ANNEX IV ............................................................................................................................................. 16
ANNEX V............................................................................................................................................... 17
Question 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 18
(i) The image and role of the learner ................................................................................................... 18
(ii) The role of the instructor ............................................................................................................. 19
(iii) The nature of the knowledge to be learned ................................................................................. 20
Question 3 .................................................................................................................................................. 22
Developmental Learner Profile ............................................................................................................... 22
Primary School Readiness ...................................................................................................................... 23
Smooth Transition of children from preschool to Grade 1 ..................................................................... 24
References .................................................................................................................................................. 27
Question 1(a)

Early Childhood Education (ECE) aims at developing wholly 0 to 8 years old children, that is,
addressing all the aspects of development of the children, namely, physical, cognitive, language,
personal, social and emotional developments. ECE focuses on the holistic development of the
child and lays the foundation for lifelong learning (MIE & ECCEA, 2008). Over 30 years ago,
there have been great debates among experts in the field of early education and child
development to generate „best practices‟ for teaching young children (Morgan, 2010). These best
practices are meant to develop positive dispositions and attitudes for learning as well as concepts
and skills necessary for the success in school and in life of the children (Lettington, 2018). These
best practices are termed Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) which serves as a
framework and philosophical approach for teaching young children, rather than a rigid set of
standards that dictate practice (Trying Together, 2018).

In the mid-1980, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
created the first DAP guidelines and later revised it in the 1990s (Lettington, 2018).
Developmentally Appropriate Practice is organized around three major dimensions: age
appropriateness, individual appropriateness and cultural appropriateness (NAEYC, 1997). These
are the three important kinds of information or knowledge that professionals making decisions
about the well-being and education of children should at least bear in mind before planning and
implementing any learning activity.

(i) Age appropriateness

According to Piaget‟s theory of cognitive development, the biological maturation that human
beings go through, causes distinct stages in cognitive development and each of these stages are
sequential, dependent on one another to develop, characterized by acquisition of discernable
skills and reflects qualitative differences in cognitive abilities (Yilmaz, 2011). Therefore, the
age-related human characteristics permit general predictions within an age range about what
activities and experiences best suit a child. Bredekamp (1987) stated that awareness of these
typical sequences of growth and change in children provides a framework from which teachers
can prepare the learning environment and plan appropriate learning experiences. It is therefore a
crucial starting point for educators to know and understand the milestones and sequences of
development in all domains - physical, cognitive, social and emotional - as these domains are not
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only closely related, but development in one domain can limit or facilitate development in the
other domains (Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren, 1993) and use the information about the child
to plan and identify activities, materials, interactions and strategies to best promote safe and
healthy growth and interesting and achievable learning which is also challenging to the child as
well as optimize development in all domains, making meaningful connections across domains.

From my school-based observations, below are some examples of how the teachers catered for
age appropriateness. The pre-primary unit of M. Burrenchobay GS consists of 3 individual
classes, each with 16 or 17 children of mixed age groups (3, 4, and 5 years old).

Example 1: When the teacher collected the hand-outs from the children, she wrote the name of
the 3 years old children in dotted style and the latter traced it, while for the 4 years old, the
children are expected to write only their name using name tag and the 5 years old children are
expected to write their name on their own. This is in line with the cognitive development of the
children.

Example 2: All the children were given the same hand-out on „Table‟ (Refer to Figure 1).
However, the expected goals that they were to meet depended on their age. The 3 years old
children were expected to only trace the letter T and the word TABLE and colour the person, the
tables and the boxes in the picture. The 4 years old children were expected to trace the dots, write
the word TABLE in the grid and colour all the images while the 5 years old children were
expected to do the same task as the latter, but write the word TABLE three more times and
colour only the small box below the table as they can receive specific instructions.

Figure 1 Figure 2

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Example 3: When drawing a house as in Figure 2, the 5 years old children were expected to
draw freely without any support while the 4 years old children were expected to make use of cut
shapes of triangle, squares, circle and rectangles to trace the shapes in the correct order to have a
house. The 3 years old children were assisted throughout their drawing and showed how to make
use of the cut shapes.

Example 4: There are different types of games with different level of difficulty which suit the
different ages of the children. For instance, soft toys and dolls are mainly for 3 years old
children, building blocks are for 4 years old children and parquetry tablets (wooden pieces of
different shapes used to create different indicated designs) are for 5 years old children.

Example 5: During the lesson „Weather and Days of the Week‟, the 3 years old children are
expected to find the pictorial flashcard corresponding to the weather the class have affirmed and
to stick it on the weather chart (Refer to Figure 3). The 4 years old children are expected to
recognise the flashcard of the days of the week and to stick it on the calendars (Refer to Figures
4 and 5) while the 5 years old children are asked to write the day of the week in English and
French on the whiteboard using the flashcards.

Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5

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 (ii) Individual appropriateness

In any group of young children, diversity is seen pertaining to the child‟s own development,
interests, needs, weaknesses and strengths and therefore attention to individual appropriateness is
crucial (Bredekamp, 1993). According to Sroufe et al. (1992), individual variation has at least
two elements, namely, the unavoidable variability around the average age or normative course of
development and the uniqueness of each person as an individual. Therefore, development
proceeds at varying rates from child to child as well as unevenly within different domains of
development and each child has an individual personality, temperament, learning style and
abilities. Teachers should value this individualism and should not have rigid and similar
expectations from all the children, which can be harmful for children with special learning and
developmental needs (Mallory, 1992).

Personalising the educating methods according to particular learning styles and intelligences of
the children allows them to learn best. Learning styles are the different approaches of learning
like the visual, auditory, read/write and kinaesthetic styles of Fleming‟s VARK model and are
identifiable methods of interacting with, taking in and processing information (Sreenidhi & Tay,
2017). Each individual has a preferred learning style in contrast to the autonomous intelligences
that they possess. Gardner et al. (2011) posit that individuals possess eight or more intelligences,
namely, linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, naturalistic,
interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences, which they draw on individually or corporately to
create products and solve problems.

From my school-based observations, below are some examples of individual appropriateness.

Example 1: To explain the concept „house‟ in pre-primary, the teacher exposed pictures, made
the children draw, built simple model of a house (Refer to Figures 2 and 6), sung song and poem
related to house, performed a role-play along with the children and last but not the least, played
the game „hire-a-house‟ (Refer to Figure 7). All these activities not only triggered the multiple
intelligences of the children but also tapped on their probable learning styles.

Figure 6
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Example 2: Upon playing the „hire-a-house‟ game (Refer to Figure 7), the teacher decided that
the roles would be assigned as follows:
5 years old: Move randomly and pay attention to the music and the teacher‟s
instruction to stop and enter a house.
4 years old: Hold hands in pairs, making a peak (/^\), representing the houses.
3 years old: Shake musical instrument to make sounds and stop upon the teacher‟s
instruction.
However, during the play, the teacher noticed that a 5 years old girl was not able to understand
the game of moving around and get into the house, so, the teacher changed her role and made her
make the house instead, while she could perfectly. Similarly, a 3 years old boy was very
enthusiastic to move randomly and enter the house instead of playing musical instrument, and
the teacher gave him the opportunity to do so and he was able to. The teacher hence catered for
the individual appropriateness of the children.

3 years old children running to 5 years old children

find a house to hire making house

Figure 7

Example 3: In many instances, upon giving a task to complete, a particular child normally
completed the task at a very fast pace in Grade 1. The teacher valued his individuality by
assigning him some extra work that would not only keep him engaged but also help him in
developing further.

Example 4: One child was struggling with the letter „n‟ and wrote it as „h‟. The teacher gave her
individual explanation about the tail (tré-debout) being longer and shorter to cater for her
weakness and need.

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 (iii) Cultural / Social appropriateness
Vygotsky‟s social cognitivism posited that social learning is likely to precede development;
culture plays a key role in the development of cognition; the interplay between the individual and
the society affects learning and language development; and that the zone of proximal
development is the distance between the developmental level of independent problem-solving
and assisted problem-solving (Yilmaz, 2011). According to NAEYC (1997), the teacher
investigate the social and cultural contexts in which a child live to ensure that learning
experiences meaningful, relevant and respectful for the participating children and their families.

From my school-based observations, below are some examples.

Example 1: A Muslim girl wore a legging under her uniform as part of her culture and although
this legging does not form part of the school uniform, it is tolerated in the school as being
sensitive to the multicultural heritage of the island.

Example 2: Upon singing a Hindi song in the pre-primary, with lines like „pray to the Hindu god
– Ishwar, the Muslim God – Allah, catholic god – Jesus‟, although the teacher is of Hindu faith,
she was aware of the way the different cultures fold their hands in prayer and accordingly made
the children raise their hands while singing. This inculcated respect and tolerance towards other
cultures and help the children in living harmoniously in the society.

Example 3: The children in the pre-primary were engaged in role-play, where groups of 5
children played the different family members and imitated their parents. This play is an
important vehicle for the children‟s social, emotional and cognitive development, as well as a
reflection of their development (NAEYC, 1997).

Example 4: A child belonging to a divorced parents and living with the grandparents, lacked
school materials and always come to school with dirty uniform. The pre-primary teacher
knowing his background, not only provided him with materials, washed his shirt and gave him
clean one to wear but also with maternal affection to the best of her ability.

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 Question 1(b)
Topic/Theme: Food (Unit 4 of English Book Part 2) Grade: 1
Title: What do we eat? And when? No. of Pupils: 25
Subject Area : English Venue: Indoor – Modular
classroom arrangement
(clusters of 5 pupils) &
horseshoe arrangement
Aim: Develop proficiency in both oral and written English (NCF, 2015, p. 26).
Goals: Begin to pronounce words accurately with support and complete simple words and sentences
with support (NCF, 2015, p.27).
Strategies Used: Questioning, Brainstorming, Expository, Cooperative and collaborative learning,
Story-telling, Small group instructions, drama, active learning (games) and drawing/writing.
Learning Outcomes: At the end of the lesson, children should be able to:
1. Recall vocabularies related to food and eating etiquettes.
2. Classify different foods according to the time of the day it is best to intake them: breakfast,
lunch, dinner.
3. Write the missing letters to complete the food names and related words.
4. Decipher the meaning of simple sentences.
5. Select appropriate word(s) to complete a sentence.
6. Write simple complete sentences based on pictorial illustrations. (Based on Bloom‟s Taxonomy)
Materials/Resources/Teaching Aids: Projector, whiteboard, flashcards, labelled stacking plastic cups,
sentence strips, pictures, big storybook, Bristol paper, glue tag, drawing book and coloured pencils.
Procedure
Teaching
Detailed steps/instructions (Teacher’s Assessment and Evaluation
Strategies/Technique
activities) (Students’ activities)
s/Resources
1. Introduce the topic by asking Students expected and guided - Questioning
questions: responses:
- Brainstorming on
“What do you do before coming to “…wake up, wash face, brush whiteboard
school?” teeth, bath, dress and eat…”
“So, what do you eat/drink?” “Milk, bread, cornflakes, roti…”

Teacher will write all the responses Teacher will thus assess prior
in English on the board. Each knowledge of the children.
student‟ culture will be valued and
specific questions will be asked at
traditional food names, allowing the
children to know their friends‟
culture.

Introducing the term breakfast as the Repetition of the term breakfast Repetition
food the children have mentioned with proper pronunciation by the
they first took in the morning. children.
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 “So children, what have you brought “Bread, macaroni, burger,
in your basket?” sandwich, water, juice…”
“And when will you consume all “During the long break!”
these?”
Introducing the term lunch as the Repetition of the term lunch with Repetition
food the children will take during proper pronunciation.
midday.

“And when you would be back at “Rice, curry, macaroni, salad…”

home, what do you eat at night?”
Introducing the term dinner as the Repetition of the term dinner with Repetition
food they will take at night. proper pronunciation.

So, children all the things that we Repetition of the term food. Repetition
eat, we call them foods.
2. Teacher will now motivate the The children will carefully observe - Expository (Pictures
children to play a simple game. The the pictures and raise their hands. projected on
teacher will project pictures of whiteboard – Refer
various foods on the whiteboard and The children will have to follow the to Annex I for a
the children will have to raise their rules of the game and not to answer sample pictures.)
hand if they identify them. The without raising hand.
teacher will select who will give the - Active learning –
answer among the raised hands. The prior knowledge is assessed. Game
The children might know the food
NOTE: All the pictures are from the name in languages other than
Grade I Book, so that the children with English. Thus the teacher will tell
visual learning style will not confuse them the English equivalent after
and have a better grasp of the validating their answers.
vocabularies. All the children will repeat the
English names.

3. After this game, the children will be The teacher will observe the - Use of book and
able to easily work the exercises children while they are writing and copybook
from the book, where they will give constructive feedback.
practice writing these words. The
teacher will also write those words
in their copybook and the children
will have to write them repeatedly.

4. The teacher will give each group of The children will share their - Cooperative and
5 children, a Bristol paper, divided knowledge and interact with their collaborative
into three columns with heading peers while sticking the flashcards learning
breakfast, lunch and dinner. Each in the correct columns. - Use of flashcards,
group will have a set of flashcards of Bristol paper, glue
food (a piece of glue tag stuck at its tag
back) and the children will work (Refer to Annex II)
collaboratively to classify the food.

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5. The teacher will stick the work of The children will present their work
each group one by one on the board and tell the class about their meals. - Presentation
and the children will do a small They will also lay emphasis on the - Small Group
presentation in group. etiquettes that they need to observe instruction
NOTE: Each group will have while eating. - Prepared Bristol
different meal, varied by their Paper
culture and thus sharing of The teacher will validate their meal
culture among peers and respect according to the mix cultures and
towards each other will be assess the children‟s
inculcated which is in line with comprehension of the different
the NCF goal (NCF, 2015, p.4). meals, while telling them the
benefits of eating such food at such
time (eg: Having milk and cereal in
breakfast before coming to school
will give them plenty of energy to
study at school, Having a light
dinner will help them sleep better).

6. To reinforce their vocabulary The children will have to complete - Small Group
building, the teacher will give each the words by stacking the correct Instruction
group a set of stacking labelled cup. The children will be motivated - Cooperative and
plastic cups (Refer to Annex III). by a chocolate bar to be given to collaborative
the one completing first. And at the learning
end of the activity, everyone will be - Active learning
rewarded with a chocolate sweet. (game)
- Stacking labelled
7. The teacher will ask each child to The children will copy the words in plastic cups (Annex III)
remove his/her copybook and copy their copybooks and the teacher - Chocolates
the words they obtained from the will assess their work by walking - Copybook
stacking cups. through the class and validating the
stacked cups.
8. The teacher will set the tables in a The children will view, read and - Story-telling
horseshoe arrangement, project the listen to the story. - Big Book “What‟s
story “What‟s for lunch?” on the for lunch?” of
board and will relate it to them. Teacher will assess the children by MOE/MIE
Focus will be made on the sentence seldom asking questions about what
structures and explaining the story in they understood.
French/Creole for everyone to
understand the story.

9. The teacher will give each student a The children will complete the - Construction
sentence strip where they have to fill sentence based on the picture - Active learning with
in the missing word from two given within the strip. sentence strip (Refer
options. All the sentences are from After completion, the teacher will to Annex IV)
the above story and are given validate each sentence strip, - Collaborative
sequentially to the children. assessing them. learning
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 Each child will sequentially go in - Presentation
front of the class and show their
strip. The teacher will help them to
read the line and the children will
repeat it.
The teacher will ask question on
what do they recall would happen
next, as each strip will be unfolded.
10. The teacher will project numbered The children will put the pictures in - Cooperative and
pictures from the story on the order and match the sentences with collaborative
board and different sentences in a the pictures. They will write in their learning
distorted order. The children will copybook the number of the picture - Expository (Pictures
be grouped into five to solve this which is first, second and so on and at Annex V)
puzzle. write the corresponding lines next - Projector/copybook
(Note: this activity can be done to it.
using tablets if available.)

11. The teacher will set the class so as Each group will do a role-play with - Role-play
to optimize the front space of the the given lines and the teacher will
class to allow the children to role- give constructive feedback as
play in groups. appropriate and individual attention
as needed. This role-play will
summarize the lesson.

12. Questions will be asked like: The teacher will ask questions - Questioning
“What time is lunch time? What do randomly and frequently to know
you do during this time? How do the progress of the children
you eat your lunch? While running (formative assessment throughout).
or sitting? Do you wash your hands
before eating? Why should we
wash our hands? If you don‟t have
enough food, how you will ask
your friend? By saying „please‟ and
„thank you‟? What are the foods
you should bring for the morning
break? Do we keep the yoghurt for
afternoon or we should eat in the
morning break? Why? Should we
eat snacks in morning break? When
should we eat snacks?
13. To conclude the lesson, the teacher The children would be assessed - Drawing/Writing
will have the children draw and without actually knowing that they - Drawing book
colour freely about what they do are being assessed and the teacher - Coloured pencils
during lunch time in their drawing would know from their drawings
book. They will also have to label and writings, how far they have
some items in their drawings and understood and grasped the subject
write simple sentences to describe matter.
what they would draw.
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ANNEX I

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For breakfast: For lunch:

For dinner:

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ANNEX II

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ANNEX III

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ANNEX IV
The sentence strips contain coloured space and images which correspond to the colour of the
answer strip. This will help children having visual and kinaesthetic learning styles.

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ANNEX V

The bell rings.

It is lunch time.

2 Ben and his friends sit under a tree.

They open their lunch bag.
What‟s for lunch?

“Yummy! I have bread with sausage

3 and lettuce. It‟s my favourite
sandwich.” says Ben.

4 “I have chips and ketchup.” says Sara.

“Mmm! It‟s delicious!”

5 “I have fried rice with vegetables and

chicken. I love it,” says Rishi.

6 Anna has chocolate cake. “Please have a

slice,” she tells her friends.
“Thank you Anna!” they say.

The children enjoy their meal.

7

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Question 2

Reggio Emilia is a city found in the northern part of Italy, wherein after the World War II, the
parents, the teachers and the general community have collaboratively developed an educational
system for young children, under the guiding influence of Loris Malaguzzi (New, 2005). The
city gave birth to the Reggio-Emilia Approach to early childhood education, which draws ideas
of many great thinkers and is more of an eclectic mix of theories (Bruner, 1983; Dewey, 1966;
Froebel, 1887; Gardner H. , 1983; Piaget, 1973; Vygotsky, 1978). The Reggio-Emilia Approach
is based on several key principles which can broadly be divided into 3 main categories: (a) The
image and role of the learner; (b) The role of the instructor and (c) The nature of the knowledge
to be learned.

(i) The image and role of the learner

This is the overriding factor of the Reggio-Emilia Approach when it comes to the teaching
and learning that take place in early childhood. The image of the child is constructed on the
fundamental belief that children have rights rather than simply needs and according to
Malaguzzi (1993), the children should therefore be given opportunities to develop their
intelligences and to make them ready for success. She beheld the children as beautiful,
powerful, competent, creative, curious and full of potential and ambitious desires. The
children occupy the primary active role in their education and learning as they have innate
desires to discover, learn and make sense of the world, that is, they are authors of their own
learning (Malaguzzi, 1993). The teachers in Reggio Emilia are deeply aware of the
children‟s potentials and construct all their learning and the environment of the children‟s
experience to respond appropriately. Importance is given on the children to make and correct
their own mistakes, providing the necessary opportunity for them to become practiced at
creative problem solving. The teachers respect the children and neither provide solutions nor
leave them to their own resources. Reggio Emilia is a child-driven curriculum.

As advocated by Dewey (1966) that all thinking of the children are research, the Reggio
Emilia Approach considers the children as natural researchers within the contexts of projects
and in-depth studies of a particular topic that one or more children undertake (Katz & Chard,
1989). The children have the opportunity to explore, observe, question, discuss, hypothesize
and represent, while engaging in projects and then revisit their initial observations and
hypotheses to further refine and clarify their understandings, expanding their thinking and
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thereby defining their role as researchers. Vygotsky‟s (1978) emphasis on communication
and language in learning also influenced the Reggio Emilia Approach. The children as
considerd as social beings and that their knowledge are contructed socially through their
relationships within the context of collaboration, dialogue, conflict, negociation and
cooperation with peers and adults (Malaguzzi, 1993). The hundred “languages” of children
are greatly emphasized as modes of expressions, sch as speech, writing, movement, drawing,
painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage and music, through which children communicate
and learn ablot their world (Malaguzzi, 1993).

(ii) The role of the instructor

In the Reggio Emilia Approach, the teachers are not the sole pourer of knowledge, but rather
they take on the roles of collaborator and co-learner, guide and facilitator, researcher and
reflective practitioner (Hewett, 2001). The teachers are partners in the learning process and
reciprocal exchange between the children and the adults are valued and fostered throughout
the process of knowledge construction. This role as co-learner is demonstrated mainly
through the project works. Also, the teachers not only collaborate with the children but with
colleagues and parents, which is a cornerstone of the Reggio Emilia Approach (Malaguzzi,
1993).

Additionally, teachers serve as guides and facilitators and play an active role in providing
the children with the provocations and tools necessary to achieve their personal goals and
advance their mental functioning. This role is also in line with Vygotsky‟s (1978) theory of
the Zone of Proximal Development, within which adults provide scaffolding to assist
children in their learning and consequent development.

Considering the image of the learners, the teachers have to take the role of researcher to be
able to facilite learning according to the children‟s interest, curiosity and prior knowledge
(Malaguzzi, 1993). Through observing and listening to the children, following-up with the
collection and analysis of data, the role of the teacher is connected to the researcher,
docummenting to ascertain critical knowledge concerning the children‟s development and
learning, as well as their interests and curiosities, enabling the latter to produce appropriate
strategies (Malaguzzi, 1993).

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 The teachers in Reggio Emilia Approach also engage in continuous reflection and become
critically concious of what is involved in the complex processes of teaching and learning.
According to Malaguzzi (1993), this reflection and questioning on the part on the teacher
must take place within the context of discussion and collaboration with colleagues, parents,
experts within the community as well as with the children.

(iii) The nature of the knowledge to be learned

Within the Reggio Emilia Approach, knowledge is viewed as a dynamic list of skills and
facts that is constructed within the context of the child-child and child-adult relationships
(Malaguzzi, 1993). Social relationships and the construction of knowledge involve debate,
discord and conflict which are valued as a means to advance higher-level thinking. Multiple
forms of knowing exist in this approach as no ultimate truth may be understood to exist
since human beings construct their own version of reality while transforming themselves and
the latter. What is to be learned in Reggio Emilia approach is not planned but rather it is up
to the children to determine the course of their investigations and learning, in collaboration
with teachers and one another. Knowledge is also perceived as a whole since learning
involves making connections and relationships between feelings, ideas, words and actions
(Hewett, 2001).

Rinaldi (2003) defined the curriculum of Reggio Emilia Approach as contextual, rather than
planned, that is, the curriculum is decided with dialogs between children, teachers and
environment. The environment is in fact, the third teacher. The content is open to suggestions of
children, suggestions of teachers, a natural incident or some news. Study subjects are chosen
from among the speeches of children, social incidents, family incidents and the interest areas of
children. Group documents and project works are the most important component of the Reggio
Emilia curriculum. The curriculum of Reggio Emilia is in fact named progettazione, that is, an
approach based on projects (Rinaldi, 2003). It is also termed emergent curriculum meaning
naturally developing. The Reggio Emilia Approach has a curriculum shaped according to the
time, place and the result of the work to be conducted with active participation by everyone, and
it suggests that children learn with short-term experiences or even momentary experiences.

Malaguzzi (1993) stated that there was no fully structured curriculum showing what need to be
taught in the Reggio Emilia Approach but contains experience and knowledge that teachers have
on early childhood and they used this knowledge as a draft to prepare an environment rich in
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materials and possibilities for the children to observe and manipulate. After observing the
children in action, the teachers compare, discuss and interpret together with other teachers their
observations, recorded in different ways.

Documentation is a powerful tool in Reggio Emilia Approach. Transcriptions of the children‟s

remarks and discussions, photographs of their activity and representations of their thinking and
learning are carefully studied by the teachers. These documents help to determine the direction in
which the work and experiences with the children will go. Displaying these organised documents
also help to make the parents aware of their children‟s experience and maintain their
involvement. These documents make it possible for teachers to understand the children better
and to evaluate the teachers‟ own work, thus promoting their professional growth. The teachers
also make the children aware that their efforts are valued through this exposition (Gandini,
2003).

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Question 3

Developmental Learner Profile

The Developmental Learner Profile (DLP) for the pre-primary sector was launched in January
2016 by the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific
Research of Mauritius (News on Sunday, 2016). This document is designed to provide a
summary of the child‟s progress and development across Pre-Primary Year 1 and 2. It specifies
the Generic Learning Statements (GLS) which have been derived from the National Educational
Goals for the Republic of Mauritius. The GLS refer to the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values
which the students need to acquire and achieve, cutting across all the areas of learning, namely,
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED), Communication, Language and Literacy
(CLL), Expressive, Creative and Aesthetic Development (ECAD), Health and Physical
Development (HPD), Body and Environmental Awareness (BEA) and Mathematical and Logical
Thinking (MLT) (MIE & ECCEA, 2008). The pre-primary teacher should record duly all the
observations with regards to the above for each individual child.

At the end of pre-primary schooling, the DLP document should be handed to parents who will
submit it to Grade I educators. As such, the parents will have cognizance of the development,
strengths and weakness of their child and they can help their child in overcoming these
weaknesses until the latter join Grade I. DLP will allow the Grade I educators to have a better
understanding of the profile of her/his learners and thus plan individualized or group activities
accordingly to help overcome their weaknesses and enhance their strengths. DLP is an important
tool for the smooth transition of children from pre-primary to primary set-up as it informs the
educator about the prior knowledge of the children, thus enabling proper scaffolding of the
children.

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Primary School Readiness

Primary School Readiness (PSR) is an important document developed by the Mauritius Institute
of Education in view of helping to improve the quality of teaching in primary schools. PSR is a
piloted and tested document meant to help teachers to assess pupils‟ readiness at the start of the
first year of primary schooling and allows them to engage in remedial teaching right from Grade
1. It also provides the means for Support Teachers to organize their work for children with
learning difficulties (MIE, 2018).

PSR consists of a set of activities to be proposed to Grade 1 pupils during their first 3 weeks of
the primary schooling. The activities are categorized in three stages, namely, open activities,
semi-guided activities and guided activities. These activities are constructed based on the
National Curriculum Framework Pre-Primary (2008), cutting across all the areas of learning to
enable the Grade 1 educator to have a meaningful picture of the competencies and abilities the
children have developed in previous years. These activities are not only means for the Grade 1
educator to build healthy relationships with the children, but also allow the former to know more
of the children‟s social and cultural background as well as their individualism and thus adopt
developmentally appropriate practices for the optimal development of the children.

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Smooth Transition of children from preschool to Grade 1
For a child to make a smooth or easy and successful transition into a school, the latter should be
ready, that is, the child should have important school readiness skills. School readiness skills
include academic basics like writing one‟s name, counting up to 10, knowing the main colours;
self-care like independent toileting and opening lunch boxes; attention and concentration,
physical skills like having endurance to sit upright for an entire school day; emotional regulation;
language skills and play and social skills (Kid Sense, 2017).

While DLP and PSR help to gauge the children‟ readiness to Grade 1, it is equally important for
Grade 1 educators to identify the difficulties that the children have with school readiness and
take corrective measures and seek appropriate aids of Support Teachers and Educational
Psychologist.

For instance, during my school-based observation, a child in Grade 1 was seen to get easily
frustrated when asked to write/draw on paper, struggled to follow instructions like stand for
prayers or queue for toilet break, wore diaper, could not sit for a long period in the class and
rather landed in any other classes without understanding the consequences of his behaviours.
According to Kid Sense (2017), these are signs of no school readines and effectively, this child
did not attend the pre-primary schooling and thus failed to develop the required readiness skills.
Categorizing this child as a mental retard instead of seeking help of Support teacher would have
jeopardize the future of this child.

Since Grade 1 children are new to the primary setting, assessing their readiness skills should be
done in ways whereby the children do not feel stressed for being assessed. One such readiness
skill that the Grade 1 educator had to assess was the name and alphabets writing. Since the
children are used to drawing freely from pre-primary, the teacher asked them to draw anything of
their interest and to write their names before submitting their drawings. The children did not
even realized the objective of the teacher but rather enjoyed drawing. This would have not been
the case if the teacher would simply instruct the children to write their names for the latter to
know who can and who cannot. Consequently, the teacher stuck colourful name tags on each
child‟s table for them to perfection their name writing.

Instead of asking the children to recite the letters of the alphabets as a means of testing their prior
knowledge, the teacher projected the muted video of the song ABC on the board and requested

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the children to sing the song. The teacher observed diligently who were only moving their lips
and who actually excelled.

To recall the days of the week, the teacher used the song „Monday, Tuesday,…‟ accompanied
with body movements as in pre-primary setting.

To recall the months of the year, the teacher asked who‟s birthday is in each month. The children
not only felt valued for having raised their hands for their birth month but also helped their peers
to memorise the months by the law of association.

To identify and be able to arrange the letters in alphabetical order, the teacher can group the
children and give each small group a complete set of the alphabets to collaboratively arrange
them in order. This will resemble a play for the children and develop peer interactions.

Children tend to memorise things which are meaningful to them. To help them recall the colours,
the teacher can bring objects of different colours like Spiderman miniature (red and blue), an
orange (orange), a football (black and white), a dressed doll (pink), a leaf (green) and so on.

To help the children learn the different members of the family (mother, father, brother, sister and
so on), the teacher can set up a role-play involving different small groups of children, each child
representing a member and imitating their real family members, through which they can also
build on their English or French vocabulary (eg. Sweep the floor, wash the dishes, go to work,
baby is crying, sister is playing with doll and so on).

The teacher can bring a miniature house model and expose to the children for them to learn the
different rooms and objects in a house.

To identify and easily capture the different shapes, the teacher can expose various real objects
and allow the children to touch and observe them (e.g. Clock for circle, lunch box for rectangle,
samoussa for triangle and so on).

To be able to write the numbers, the teacher can make the children trace them in the air with their
fingers first, before writing on their copybook. A simple game can also help them memorise and
count the numbers. For example, the teacher can display several objects on her table and ask the
children to come one at a time to count a specific object (e.g. eraser, pencil, pen, ruler and so on).
The teacher can also ask all the children to bring in front the snacks that they will bring and
expose them on her table. The teacher can select a child at random and ask her/him to count the
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number of packets of a specific snack. As such, the children will feel valued and proud as their
snacks are being used.

To understand the mathematical concept of long and short, some children of varying lengths can
be exposed in front of the class and allow the children to observe and compare.

Last but not the least, the teacher should not expect that all the children will be able to complete
a certain task or activity given. The teacher should give the children ample time to complete
same and help them individually, as appropriate. The teacher should be a critical observer and
notice every small details pertaining to the child‟s development and recognize when the children
are going through an opening of knowledge window to input what the child has not been able to
grasp previously. This is easily noticed through the children‟s behaviour and interactions with
their peers.

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