Pause for reflection

By Marie-Louise Charlton, early years consultant As an early years practitioner, do you ever reflect on the importance of your role? After parents, you are probably the most important person in a child's life. Your actions will directly affect aspects of their development. We should reflect on how we interact with the children in our care. As practitioners we must show just how much we value play. We can best do this by initiating play or sensitively joining in the children's spontaneous play. Female practitioners must make a point of valuing boys' play, too. We have to accept that some...