A publication of the Child Development Network, Child Care Division of the M

inistry of Comm

unity Development, Youth and Sports

Issue 01/ Oct 2010

our monthly e-newsletter and quarterly Early Childhood Digest. Teachers and trainees interested in research can also look forward to the Early Childhood Research Fund, a grant to support action research on early childhood issues in Singapore. Applications are open and forms are available online.

The CDN has something for everyone – whether you are an operator, teacher, trainee or parent. So come log on and explore what the CDN has to offer today!

D.E.A.R. @ CommunityStart a mini library in your child care centre! You can borrow up to 2,000 books for a period of nine weeks. D.E.A.R. @ Community offers you the golden opportunity to supplement your centre’s curriculum and reading programmes. Books are selected by librarians according to your requirements and/or your students’ reading interests. You can refresh the books in your mini library every nine weeks. Best of all, this service is provided free of charge. For enquiries, please contact us at 63323255 or email: ask@nlb.gov.sg

The Child Development Network- An Early Childhood CommunityIt gives us great pride and pleasure to present the inaugural issue of the Early Childhood Digest.

This quarterly digest will bring you practical tips based on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) research, update you on the latest news in the local ECCE sector and also inform you

of upcoming training and events which you can participate in.

The spotlight in this issue is on quality in children’s services. Some highlights include an introduction to the newly launched Child Development Network (CDN), an article on “Quality in Children’s Services”

and some book reviews from the National Library Board (NLB).

We would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions, questions, feedback or wish to contribute to this newsletter. Please contact us at MCYS_CDN@mcys.gov.sg.

The Early Childhood Digest can also be viewed at http://www.cdn.gov.sg/publications/ECD_01_10.pdf

The King of Tiny Things Jeanne Willis London: Puffin, 2010Available at NLB libraries [JP WIL]

Meet the gentle and gleeful ‘King of Tiny Things’- healer and lover of tiny creatures found in gardens. He will change your mind about slugs, crawling insects and winged bugs as he sings his lullaby and shows how they too can be beautiful and important, not feared. This is what happened to Chrissy and her sister during their stay at Grandpa’s. After com-pleting the book, you are awarded a title and certificate of being a Chief Assistant to the King of Tiny Things.

CupcakeCharise Mericle HarperNew York, N.Y.: Disney/Hyperion Books, c2010Available at NLB libraries [JP HAR]

A book that attracts you right away with its illustrated cover of an adorable cupcake, it tells the story of vanilla cupcake who feels plain next to his siblings when they were all bought except for him. He meets a plain candle that feels the same way and together they think of ideas to become fancier. Look out for the sweet conclusion as well as the “Deliciously

Plain Vanilla Cupcakes” recipe at the end.

Book REVIEWS

Raising a Resilient Child in a Challenging World - A Parenting Seminar

Date: 20 November 2010Time: 10.00am – 1.00pmVenue: TOUCH Community Theatre3615 Jalan Bukit Merah, Singapore 159461

Organised as part of the Parent Education in Pre-school (PEPS) zonal talk series, parents will pick up pointers on how to raise a resilient child with the inner strength to deal competently and successfully with life’s challenges. Family life educators, Mr Arthur Ling and his wife Ms Chee Siah, together with a few parents, will inspire parents with their experiences and parenting tips.

Contact: Ms Patricia TanTel: 6317 9998Email: patricia.tan@touch.org.sg, Website: www.touch.org.sg

MCYS Technology Seminar and Fair 2010

Date: 24 November 2010Time: 1.45pm – 5.30pmVenue: Republic Polytechnic9 Woodlands Ave 9, Singapore 738964

The IT Seminar will serve as a platform to bring cloud computing and case studies to the child care sector. The Seminar will be complemented by a Technology Fair which is aimed at helping child care centre operators to create a culture of embracing IT in their operations. IT solutions, equipment and innovative packages will be showcased to participants.

Contact: MCYS Child Care LinkTel: 6258 5812Email: MCYS_Child_Care_Link@mcys.gov.sg

Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports

To love what you do and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun?

Katharine Graham

UPCOMING EVENTS...

Note from the Editors

Babies Can Be Members Too!

Give the key to a treasure trove of wisdom to a child. Parents just need to sign their children up as members from birth to receive lifetime access to a wide array of resources and services. The youngest baby boy and baby girl at the point of registering as library members will each get to win a “Baby’s First Library” – a bookshelf filled with books specially selected by the Children’s Librarians. So, come participate in this promotion today! Parents can register their children at the Library e-kiosks or Customer Service Counters at all public libraries except library@esplanade.

Reviews by Sharifah Masturah Abdul Latif, National Library BoardYou can check the availability of these titles via NLB’s online catalogue at www.pl.sg

Editorial Team: Dr Chan Lin Ho, Dr Khoo Kim Choo (Advisor), Ms Pamela Lee, Mr Tan Li Sheng, Ms Florrine Ng, Ms Sarah Siew

The CDN logo uses fresh and bright colours that represent the vibrant nature of the early childhood

community in Singapore. The cursive-like font depicts the evolving nature of the sector as well as the personal and nurturing touch of our early

childhood professionals. The building block depicts the important role early childhood programmes

play in laying a solid foundation for the education and development of our children, who are the future of our nation.

:: Quality in Children’s Services:: Bottom-Up View of Quality :: Training Courses:: Upcoming Events :: D.E.A.R. @ Community:: Babies can be members too!:: Book Reviews

Inside

Early childhood practitioners and parents can now look forward to a community of professionals working to enrich the lives of children in Singapore. The Child Development Network (CDN), championed by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), has been launched on 1 Oct 2010 as part of the government’s efforts to raise the quality of early childhood care and development in Singapore.

The CDN will work in partnership with sector stakeholders (e.g. Association for Early Childhood Educators (Singapore), SEED Institute, Professional Chapter for Early Childhood Educators under the Edu-cation Services Union etc), complementing and mobilizing their energies and initiatives to raise the quality of child care. The CDN will provide technical assistance and consultancy to child care centres, provide professional guidance and career counselling to early childhood professionals, support research and promote good practices, as well as enhance public education about early childhood development.

Find out more about the CDN through our online portal: http://www.cdn.gov.sg. A wealth of resources and information is available for centres, early childhood professionals and parents. You can get your views heard via the online forum. Get updates on the latest news, events and training opportunities in the sector through

Parent Education in Pre-school (PEPS) Programme Recruitment Briefing for Pre-schools

Date: 12 January 2011Time: 10.00am – 11.30amRegistration starts at 9.30amVenue: MCYS Community Hall17th floor, MCYS Building, 512 Thomson Road, Singapore 298136

Parent Education in Pre-school Programme (PEPS) is a school-based family life education programme that empowers and equips parents with effective parenting skills and enhances parent-child relationships, while fostering positive values and social competencies in young children. The PEPS Recruitment Briefing will provide preschool principals and supervisors with information on PEPS management, requirements, funding, and other related issues.

Contact: Ms Chen PeiqiTel: 6354 7098Email: MCYS_peps@mcys.gov.sg

COURSES OFFERED BY TRAINING AGENCIES

• Staff qualifications and training give staff the skills and knowledge needed to work with children and families positively and effectively.

• Higher staff-child ratios support more sensitive caregiving and greater engagement between

caregiver and child. This is particularly important for infant and toddler programmes. The risk of abuse is also lower with higher staff-child ratios.

• Smaller group sizes allow children to form caring relationships with one another, discover through play and engage in meaningful shared experiences. Small groups are particularly important for infants as they lower risks of infection and improve the safety of children.

Process components concern what children experience, including curricula, pedagogy, child-carer relationships, parent-teacher partnerships, staff stability and working conditions. These components influence quality in the following ways:

Adapted with permission from The Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne: Policy Brief No. 2, 2006: Quality in Children’s Services. Available online: [http://www.rch.org.au/ccch]

The quality of children’s

services has a profound

influence on children’s

development.

• Staff stability and continuity are necessary for children and families to build secure, trusting and responsive relationships with staff. High staff turnover is disruptive and damaging to children.

• Working conditions such as access to training, appropriate remuneration and working conditions impact on staff commitment, professionalism and turnover.

• Strong curricula and child-carer relationships in high quality ECCE programmes promote a child’s well-being and development. Teachers are encouraged to interact with children and focus on all aspects of development (cognitive, language, social, emotional, motivational, artistic and physical), not just academic development. Positive child-carer relationships are important for a high quality curriculum.

• Parental engagement is necessary since children need a positive home learning environment too. Teachers are encouraged to discuss with parents their children’s development and how to extend the classroom experience into their homes.

What has the Singapore Government done?

Regulatory Standards In Singapore, all child care centres are regulated and licensed through the Child Care Centres Act (Cap 37A)

Quality in Children’s Services

In her article, “Looking at the Quality of Early Childhood Programs” in the Exchange management guidebook, The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations, Lilian Katz makes these comments,

“The characteristics of a program that really predict its outcome are the answers to the bottom-up question, which is: What does it feel like to be a child in this environment?

“Obtaining answers to this question is not easy! It requires making the very best guess one can about how each individual child in this group experiences the program. We can proceed by asking about the environment on behalf of each child: • Is it welcoming rather than merely captivating? • Do I belong in the group rather than merely have a

good time? • Am I usually accepted by adults rather than scolded?

Every day care center, whether it knows it or not, is a school. The choice is never between custodial care and education. The choice is between unplanned and planned education,

between conscious and unconscious education, between bad education and good education. James L. Hymes, Jr.

SEEDwww.seedinstitute.edu.sg Tel: 6332 0668/6334 6005Email: info@seedinstitute.edu.sgClassroom Management• WSQ – Teacher-Child Interaction and

Classroom Management Mentor Coaching• WSQ – Mentoring Novice Teachers

Assessment and Evaluation• WSQ – Child Development and Observation

KLC School of Educationwww.klc.edu.sgTel: 6858 9600Email: enquiry@klc.edu.sgPhonics• Creative Teaching of Phonics to Young

Children• Teaching Phonics – Learning through Play

Approach (Chinese) Music and Movement• Dance and Choreography for Pre-school

Concert• Teaching Dance and Movement to Young

Children• Certificate in Teaching of Dance and

Movement

Speech and Drama• Creative Approaches to Story-Telling in

ECEManaging Children with Special Needs• Teaching Strategies for Children with

Learning Difficulties (Chinese)Children’s Care and Well-being• Introduction to Infant Massage• Developing Social-Emotional Competence

Skills in Young Children

LEarNING CaPITaL COLLEGEwww.learningcapital.com.sgTel: 6336 8335Email: enquiries@learningcapital.com.sgManaging Children with Special Needs• Supporting Children with Special Needs• Assist with Programming and Learning

Needs for Children with Special Needs• Planning and Evaluating Programmes for

Children with Special Needs • Supporting Special Needs Children

SaUCwww.alsauc.edu.sg Tel: 6254 9246 Email: info@alsauc.edu.sg

The quality of children’s services has a profound influence on children’s development. Research has shown that high quality environments are related to positive child development outcomes. In contrast, poor quality environments pose a risk to children’s development. One example is the Effective Pre-school and Primary Education (EPPE) study conducted in the UK. Results of the study showed that high quality pre-schools had positive benefits on children’s development, which lasted throughout primary school.

What constitutes Quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) ?So what exactly constitutes high quality ECCE? There are two areas that we can look at: 1) structural and 2) process components.

Structural components include staff training and qualifications, staff-child ratios and group sizes. These components influence quality in the following ways:

Bottom-Up View of Qualityand the Child Care Centres Regulations. The Licensing Instrument covers five key aspects: (i) physical environment; (ii) safety, health, hygiene and nutrition; (iii) staff training/qualifications and staffing requirements; (iv) programme and curriculum and (v) administration.

Kindergarten Curriculum FrameworkSince 2003, the Ministry of Education (MOE) launched the Kindergarten Curriculum Framework, adopting a holistic approach for children to develop and learn. Both kindergartens and child care centres refer to this framework to design their own programmes and lesson plans.

Measures to Upgrade the Early Childhood Profession The government has introduced new measures to upgrade the early childhood profession. Some of these are: (i) raised minimum teacher qualifications; (ii) scholarships for early childhood degrees and diplomas; (iii) a Continuous Professional Development Framework, which will be developed over the next year to complement the core training requirements for teachers and supervisors and to raise staff quality.

What can YOU do as an Early Childhood Professional?

• Upgrade yourself by enrolling in professional development courses

• Participate in evidence-based action research

• Remember that a high quality curriculum is highly dependent on your interaction with the child(ren) in question

• Adopt a play-based approach to learning

• Be flexible in your pedagogical approaches

• Talk to parents frequently on their child’s development and how they can extend classroom learning approaches into the home

• Make use of community resources: reinforce children’s learning by going to libraries, museums, concerts and cultural fairs together

• Encourage and promote reading in your centre

• Seek opportunities to consult with knowledgeable and experienced early childhood specialists to discuss improving the quality of your centre on an ongoing basis

Positive child-carer relationships

are important for a

high quality curriculum

Phonics• Teaching Phonemic Awareness and

Phonics to young children Music and Movement• Music Mosaic Workshop Conflict Resolution• Basic Counselling and Guidance in

Schools • Developing Children’s EQ Reluctant Learners• Effective Communication with your

Child Managing Children with Special Needs• WSQ – Support for Early Intervention

Programme aged 0-6 years • Art Therapy for Children with Special

Needs • Certificate in Mainstreaming Children

with Special Needs Children’s Care and Well-being• Bonding with Infants through Massage • WSQ – Assist in the Development of

Children aged 0-8 years • WSQ – Health, Hygiene, Nutrition and

Safety for Children aged 0-8 years• Seminar on Learning: The Project

Approach • Pre-School Learning Environment • Learning Centres in Pre-Schools

• Am I taken seriously rather than just precious or cute? • Am I usually accepted by some peers rather than

isolated, neglected, or rejected? • Is this environment usually involving rather than

entertaining? • Are the activities meaningful rather than mindless? • Are the activities engaging rather than amusing? • Are the activities interesting rather than boring? • Do I usually come here willingly rather than

reluctantly?

“It seems to me that only when answers to most of these questions are positive can we assume that the quality of the program is worthy of our children.”

Adapted from Child Care Exchange, ExchangeEveryDay, “Bottom-up View of Quality”, April 21, 2008. Available: [https://secure.ccie.com/eed/issue.php?id=1969]