All children have the right to a safe environment
in which to learn and grow. Safe and smart supervision
requires many strategies to put into practice while in child care.
For example, choosing where to position yourself in a room full of children
is a key strategy in quality supervision.
There are four key points to consider when positioning yourself in
supervising a group of children.
1. Position yourself where you can see all the children in your group.
2. Position
yourself where you can hear all the children in your group.
3. Position yourself where
you can direct all the children in your group.
4. Position yourself where you can
assess or assist and intervene, if needed, all of the children in your group.
Again, good supervisory
positions allow you to see, hear,
direct and assess all of the children.
Even when we are able to see, hear, direct,
and assess children, there is still more to think about
in positioning ourselves. When intentionally
planning how to position yourself think about:
can you and your coworkers see and cover the whole area that you are in?
The big thing with positioning yourself might
be if Colleen was in one corner of the room, or Erin or someone...
I want to spread out so that we have coverage and so that we are
supervising the whole group of children
so that as many vantage
points as you can possibly have are
being seen at one time.
When intentionally planning how to position yourself think about: are there any
risks? Are there any blind spots?
When you walk into any classroom, it's important to get the lay of the land,
a room awareness if you will. In this particular classroom, you see this
great little storybook nook over here. This is an area that you may need to
pay special attention to with supervision. Make sure that you look over
and check what's going on in that area throughout the morning. Another thing
in this room is we have a terrific loft. It's really a great place.
Kids absolutely love it, but it takes a special kind of
supervision to be aware of youngsters and where they are in this loft area.
They could be tucked down inside and you just need to be aware of
what the youngsters are doing, particularly if you're lining up to go outside
you need to account where in the room might children be hiding
or get away from you. Also in this classroom, we have
really terrific bathrooms that are kind of open to the classroom area, but again
when you're lining up to transition out of this room, this could be a place where
a youngster would go to get away or hide out from you. So you're going to be always checking
in and making sure that no youngsters are in there.
Another thing, this room has a slight "L" to it. This could present a blind
spot if you're standing down at that end of the room. So you need to position yourself
so that you can always see in that little corner. Now if
I'm standing right here in this classroom and I look down into the classroom,
you can see behind the shelf right there is a little bit of a blind
spot, so you're going to need to continue, if you're in this room alone,
to move around the room so that you often are getting a glance
back there and you know about any youngsters that are there, or you have a sense
of what they're doing. Supervision...it's important to always get the
lay of the land of the room, and take stock, and get a room awareness
as you go in to supervise a new classroom. What are the areas
that are going to need some special attention and need me to really look into?
When intentionally planning how to position yourself think about:
are there any children who need extra help? Are there any
unique times you will need more staff or help?
A lot of that also has to depend on how many
grown ups or teachers you have in the room. So that
really...we have a child on the spectrum of
autism so that's a very hands-on...
requires a lot of your human resources so
that's one thing. Then you have some children...we have
some children that are coming over who are making the transition from the infant
toddler room who are just becoming three years old and they need
some extra help and some extra patience.
So being aware of your dynamic of who needs what as they are coming in the routine
and what your staffing is for that day.
When intentionally planning how to position yourself think about:
are there areas or times during the day that require extra
work for supervising? I guess as a veteran teacher
it's just kind of being able to scan the room and knowing and seeing
where the help is needed and where it's not.
I think that's even more important.
When intentionally planning how to position yourself think about: do I use
team talk? Whenever more than one
adult is supervising a group of children, you need to become a
team. Just like sports teams, you need to work
on a way to communicate with each other. This is called team talk.
(teachers are communicating before transitioning children)
(teachers communicating about the count)
Keep children safe
and well supervised. Be able to see, hear,
direct, and assess all children.
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