The Early Years Foundation Stage (2007) aims to improve quality in early years settings by eliminating any distinction between care and education. This reflects the way young children learn and develop.
For babies and children, every moment in their day is a learning opportunity. Children learn as they play and play as they learn. They do not separate play and learning, and nor should the practitioners caring for them.
An environment with a structured care routine timetable can make it very difficult for children to develop free-flowing play as defined by Tina Bruce (1991).
Care routines provide practitioners with an ideal opportunity to build secure attachments with children in their key group, offering continuity of experience. For some children, having their nappy changed can be an anxious time, and a familiar and trusted key person may go a long way to relieving this tension. Practitioners should make the most of care routines, giving high-quality one-to-one interactions, lots of eye contact and reciprocal exchanges, ultimately handling the children with respect.
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