Help Please!

[Guest]

My daughter is currently doing a nursing course and needs a definition of the 0-5 age group. It has to be a quote from a book or a government policy document. I have searched through what I have at home but am unable to find anything.

Does anybody have anything she could use please? Thank you in anticipation.

Linda

[Susan]

Sorry Linda, dont think I do either.

 

but at the risk of appearing completely bonkers, what sort of definition??

 

Have you tried the Sure Start website or similar?

[Helen]

Hi Linda,

I'm a bit stumped, too. Do you mean something like pre-schoolers, under-fives, or does it have to have a medical connection?

[Guest]

Hi, its Carrie here (Linda's daughter).

 

I'm not sure how to explain this. Its easier to do for other groups such as older people - "These are people who have completed their career in paid employment and/or child rearing. This is a socially-constructed definition of old age, which, according to different interpretations, includes people as young as 50, or from the official retirement ages of 60 for women and 65 for men." (Taken from the National Service Framework for Older People).

 

I've looked in various text books and government policies and I'm either not looking in the right place or there isn't anything! The main problem I'm having is a lot of things group 0 to 19 year olds together and I can't find anything to describe 0 - 5s.

 

Hope this makes sense.

 

Carrie

[Guest]

No Helen it doesn't have to have a medical connection.

Carrie's placement at the moment is in the community so it is looking at keeping healthy as opposed to treating patients. So looking at lifestyles, eating habits exercise etc. Also what is on offer in a particular area for a certain age group. She has chosen under 5's as obviously I have a lot of experience and contacts.

My idea is that we are talking along the lines of this age being pre-schoolers as a group. There just doesn't seem to be an actual definition of what they are other than pre school, and that is obviously not going to be enough.

Linda

[Guest]

Have you tried looking on the QCA website, other than that I haven’t got a clue, sorry.

[Guest]

Hi

The only thing I can think of which may be what you are after is child development and Piagets or Erik Erikson's theories

 

Piaget

 

Piaget identifies four developmental stages and the processes by which children progress through them. The four stages are:

 

Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years old)--The child, through physical interaction with his or her environment, builds a set of concepts about reality and how it works. This is the stage where a child does not know that physical objects remain in existence even when out of sight (object permanance).

 

Preoperational stage (ages 2-7)--The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations.

 

Concrete operations (ages 7-11)--As physical experience accumulates, the child starts to conceptualize, creating logical structures that explain his or her physical experiences. Abstract problem solving is also possible at this stage. For example, arithmetic equations can be solved with numbers, not just with objects.

 

Formal operations (beginning at ages 11-15)--By this point, the child's cognitive structures are like those of an adult and include conceptual reasoning.

 

Erik Erikson - Cant find my notes at the moment - but you should be able to do an internet search.

 

Not sure whether this helps or not - I can't think of anything else though

Jo

[Guest]

I'm not sure whether this is any help, but when I was studying for my degree I used a book called 'From Birth to Five Years: Children's Developmental Progress', by Mary D Sheridan. If you haven't already, it may be worth a look?

 

Also found this one: 'Promoting Children's Learning from Birth to Five: Developing the New Early Years Professional', by Angela Anning & Anne Edwards. This isn't one I've personally looked at, so I've no idea what it's like.

Good luck on your quest!