Question
Q – “I’m about to begin my level 4 in childcare and management. For my first topic I have to research and write an essay about a topic of my choice. Can anyone give me any recommendations?”
Answers
A – “I would recommend choosing something you are passionate about such as outdoor play, forest schools, messy play, behaviour management, communication and language etc”
A – “At the moment the “hot topic” is how are settings going to support the governments offer of 30 hours free child care . You could look at it from the managers perspective aswell as parents E.G Financial implications as well as difficulties with recruitment . You could include the positives to removing the GCSE requirements for EYE & how that may impact on recruitment .It’s everywhere in the news at the moment & so you shouldn’t have any problems with research ….”
A – “The new level 4 is the called early years advanced practitioner. You must hold a full and relevant early years qualification. Please ensure if you are considering doing this or any other qualification it is a full and relevant qualification using the dfe qualification checker. Also be advised this is a certificate not a diploma and does not count towards the first year of a foundation degree as previous l4 did.”
A – “Essays after a while can become hard going especially when u get to your dissertation! Therefore you have to choose something that interests you! You will end up living sleeping breathing these topics, if it hasn’t got your interest then finding the motivation to finish will be hard! Procrastination will hit hard and even cleaning the toilet will hold more interest lol. Best of luck to you”
A – “Choose a topic that you can find endless amounts of reputable research on. Be careful not to quote from American websites and try to stick to the Guardian newspaper if looking to quote from a daily newspaper. Use quotes and paraphrase and quickly get used to the Harvard method of writing your bibliography. Outdoor play and forestry skills is a hot topic at the moment. You can find lots on that that is fairly modern research but it also can be linked to older theorists too. Good luck, I almost miss using my brain now that I’ve finished my foundation degree!”
A – “Choose something you are passionate about! All assignments for my FDA and BA that I got to chose the content on I got all my best marks as I was so interested in it! Don’t chose something just because of the amount of research or how popular it is. Or find out something knew about something old and LEARN! Enjoy”
A – “Have a look at early years dissertation topics – the topics will give you some inspiration. But do something you feel strongly about. It might be health including diet. Could be physical activity (do they get enough) .. It could be qualifications (do u agree on qualifications over experience, or experience over qualifications, or a good mix…) … you could even write about just the eyfs itself – do you agree with it, the age and stage brackets etc or should we just let children play and not monitor (none of us had the eyfs and we all turned out just fine!)… you could talk about the influence of poverty on learning and development… or parent partnerships especially with regards to SEN (doing my oral exam on this, this semester). I’m currently lvl 6 and writing an essay right now on reception baseline assessments which i’ve found interesting. Safeguarding as well is another big topic – do early years know enough about the signs, do they record enough, do all practitioners know exactly what to do if there is a concern… you can do some history on it from serious case studies and lots of info out there on safeguarding. Good luck”
A – “How about a reflective piece about where you are now and the gaps in your knowledge that you hope to develop during the course?”
A – “Autism is always great to write about as there ms a lot of ground to cover! Maybe then go on to mention interventions speech and language ect”
A – “I looked at: ‘Are summer born children school ready?’ For a current issue module in my Early Years degree”
A – “Resilience, transitions, pedagogy, safeguarding, attachment …the list goes on.”
A – “Look at the settings last Ofsted report and see if there is anything that needed improved or changed”
A – “Schemas it seems to be becoming a big thing recently”