Enabling Environments: Collections - Helping hands

Acting out scenes where firefighters rescue cats from trees or police officers chase baddies on motorbikes is appealing to young children, particularly those who enjoy action and adventure. Equally, role-playing doctors, nurses, vets or dentists gives children the chance to make sense of situations that may or may not be familiar to them.

Practitioners can help to broaden children's interest in and understanding of 'people who help us' by enabling them to meet local community workers - a visit to a fire station or an in-house visit from a police officer - backed up with plenty of resources for role play at the nursery. For example, children may want to turn the home corner into a police station or create a fire station outdoors where they can have access to water. Books and DVD footage of real people at work and role-play materials for creating workplace scenarios are vital to support children's learning.

CORE COLLECTION

Children are natural born problem-solvers and see themselves as willing helpers. In a child's eye, 'people who help' us might include anyone from the next-door neighbour who has a key to their house to a babysitter or a teacher. According to Julian Grenier, headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School and Children's Centre, north London, it's fine to broaden children's view of 'people who help us' as long as it makes sense in the child's eyes. He explains, 'Try to think about it in terms of the potential for learning rather than it fitting into a category.'

He adds, 'It might be difficult for children to understand how to prevent a fire or what the police do, so start with the things they can understand - feeling well or unwell - and role play doctors or nurses.'

He also advises settings to take small groups out to visit local community workers to see them in action or, if a local policeman or firefighter visits the setting, let them talk to small groups of children. He explains, 'Avoid having children sitting in large groups for long periods of time just listening passively. Instead, try to arrange the children in small groups of three and four, so they can talk as well as listen.'

Here are some points to consider when building up a core collection of 'people who help us' resources:

• Provide a range of role-play equipment that will stimulate high levels of communication, interaction and language. Try the Outdoor Emergency Services Resources from www.earlyexcellence.co.uk, which include a set of two Firefighter Helmets, £6.50, a Firefighter Hose, £12.50, a Firefighter Waistcoat, £14.95, a set of Emergency Cones, £9.50, and a Co-operative Play Vehicle, £340. Also in the range is a Police Tabard, £22.50, Police Notebook Set, £3.50, a Paramedic Jacket, £24.50, and Paramedic Box, £13.50, with safety blanket and bandages.

• Build up a wide range of hats. Police, firefighter and nurses hats are useful accessories. Try the six pack of People Who Help Us Hats, £31.95, from www.hope-education.co.uk or the Hat Set, £89.99, with 20 hats, from Cosy Direct on 01332 370152.

• Offer a selection of tabards and jackets. The set of five People Who Help Us Tabards, including crossing patrol, police, fire, ambulance and workman, priced at £26.99, is available from www.earlyyears.co.uk. Alternatively, there's the Emergency Service 3 in 1, £30.99, a reversible two-piece costume with three labels to signify emergency services. For complete costumes, including the Male Nurse, a blue tunic with crossover front, pockets and epaulettes and matching trousers, from £16.75, try www.jandmtoys.co.uk.

• Ensure that you also provide the 'tools for the job'. For medics, there's the Doctor In A Bag, £26.95, a drawstring bag containing a medical kit, apron, hat and mask, from www.notonthehighstreet.com; the Medical Case, £16, from www.elc.co.uk; the Classic World Wooden Doctors Case, £19.99, from www.pinkelly.co.uk; or the Stethoscope, £5.50, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk. For policemen, try the Pocket Notebook and Calculator, £2.95, from Cosy Direct. Or, for firemen, the set of two torches, £12, from www.earlyexcellence.co.uk will be useful at the scene of an accident.

• Air and sea rescue is another area to be explored. A pair of Helicopter Emergency Write-on Trousers with wipe on/off writing pockets, just like the real thing used by police air support officers, £14.95, is perfect to get boys writing, from Cosy Direct. Waterproof Notebooks, £3.95 for three, are also available from Cosy Direct.

• Provide a range of emergency vehicles and signs to direct traffic for outdoor play. Try the police Balance Bike, £45.99, from Cosy Direct, or attach to your existing bikes Trike Writers, waterproof wipe-clean number plates, £19.95 for 10, from Cosy Direct. Alternatively, try the Police Trike, £214.95, from www.galt-educational.co.uk. Use the People Who Help Us Road Signs, £55.95, from www.earlyyears.co.uk to direct traffic.

• Ensure that children have opportunities to act out these scenarios on a smaller scale. The Everyday Heroes Wooden Playset, £109.98 from Cosy Direct, is a fold-out hospital, fire station, police station and air rescue centre. Use it with the set of four wooden bendy dolls Medical Team, £18.99, or the City Firefighters, £13.95, or the Adult Career Figures, £18.95, all from Cosy Direct.

• To re-enact emergency scenarios, try the Ambulance Set, £29.99, with a wheelchair, medical kit & trolley; the solid wood Air Ambulance set, £19.99; and the Medical Team, doctor, nurse and patient, £13.99, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk. Add vehicles used by people who help us. There's the London Vehicle set, £12.99, seven classic wooden vehicles, including ambulance, fire engine and police car, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk. Or, extend your range of people who help us by talking about people who collect the rubbish and recycling. Try the Recycling Truck made from eco-friendly recycled materials, £19.95, also from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk.

• Puppets are a good way to kick-start discussion on people who help us. Try the set of ten Career Hand Puppets, £31.95, from www.tts-group.co.uk or Reflections on Learning's People That Help puppet set, £29.99.

TALKING TUBS

If a face-to-face visit is not possible, another way to start discussion around people who help us is to use a Talking Tub - People who help us, £45, from www.mindstretchers.co.uk. This includes photographs and 3D objects, and has been designed to act as a stimulus to encourage children to think about people and different professions.

Kate Hookham, senior in-service trainer at Mindstretchers, says that the photographs are for visual learners and different props and materials are for kinaesthetic learners to hold on and talk about it. She says, 'It's a starting point. It contains photos and objects that are meaningful to children. Settings can then add to it by taking a photo of the local police station or the lollipop lady.

'I once added handcuffs to it. This led to a discussion on goodies and baddies. The children then set up a police station role-play area and made hats out of paper, and I tied safety knots into string that children used as handcuffs. They used stripey material to make signs and wrote their observations on notepads.'

BOOK CORNER

People Who Help Us Books, £59.95, a set of five hardback books profiling a police officer, paramedic, fire fighter, postman and doctor, with lots of colour photographs as well as text, from www.hope-education.co.uk

Topsy and Tim Meet the Police by Jean Adamson, The twins' class is visited by two police officers, who explain to the children what their jobs involve.

CASE STUDY

Staff at Haveley Hey Community Primary School nursery in Wythenshawe, Manchester used films containing real footage of people who help us, devised by www.childseyemedia.com, as the inspiration for their role-play areas. Practitioners set up a pets' hospital, a large outdoor fire station, complete with suspended cardboard ladder, and a post office. They gave careful thought to the number and type of props provided in the role-play areas. The props reflected those in the films, such as a soft-toy cat in a flea collar.

The pets' hospital had its own reception desk, with role-play sheets, telephone and pencils. The fire station also had an office with role-play sheets, pencils and a turn-out printer to receive call-out messages. The post office was equipped with stationery, stamps and greetings cards, role-play sheets and pencils, as well as scales and parcels.

Children were enthusiastic about including writing in all their role play. In the pet hospital and fire station, the children would write, for example, about how they made a pet better or rescued an animal from a fire. All children handled the props with care and respect, especially the poorly soft-toy animals, and children could be seen holding them expertly, just like the vet in the film. Similarly, the children took pride in wearing the outfits, and some children felt that they could not be a vet, firefighter or postal worker unless they wore the outfit. As children could play a variety of roles within the people who help us theme, the potential for interplay between the areas was maximised. For example, the firefighters rescued a cat from a fire outside and took it indoors to the pets' hospital, and a postperson posted a letter to the real firefighters to say thank you for their visit.

• - The complete set resources contained in the Young Writers' Role Play Pack, by www.childseyemedia.com, priced at £144.99, contains two People Who Help Us DVDs Plus, with eight films: firefighters, police, postal workers, refuse collectors and recyclers, nurses and doctors, dentists, vets and members of the car rescue service; eight bespoke role-play outfits made by Three Bears Playthings; two digital handbooks of learning ideas; and a 'printables' disc with 30 role-play sheets.

MORE INFORMATION

• EYFS: Children play firefighters is at: http://youtu.be/uxR597JvYt0
• Look out for our new series of A2 colour posters on the theme of People Who Help Us - the frist one, Doctors and Nurses, is published with our 3 September issue