Resources for child development
02 February 2021
Hints and Tips - 4 minute read
Sarah Ash - Subject Advisor for child development and health and social care
This blog was originally published on 23 April 2020
If you’re working from home and supporting students that are working at home too, you might be struggling to think of where you can get additional resources from. I’m here to help you, I’ve listed some good web sites that you can use to create interesting and challenging lessons.
My colleagues and I recently wrote some blogs to help your students understand how to use our resources, and we’ve also published lots of subject-specific support posts too. I’m certain you’ll find something that can help meet your needs. Take a look at the range of subjects available.
Internal resources
There are a number of resources that you might already be familiar with starting with ExamBuilder exemplar material, sample assessment material and examiner and moderator reports available from our web pages.
External resources and blogs
When looking for resources for child development there are some excellent blogs being written by early years specialists and journalists such as family.co and the Early Years Staffroom. Both sites offer advice, guidance, and resources to support your understanding of early years education and development.
Newspapers, magazines and journals
When using newspapers to research child development, the education and health sections are a good place to start. Using the search option in the newspaper's website will also bring up current and historic articles too.
Newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph are well worth reading. You can rely on the articles published in these newspapers to give you accurate information, and if your students regularly read them they can follow stories to see how they develop. Some do require a subscription if you want to read them online.
There are also parenting magazines, with titles such as Mother and Baby, Baby Magazine or The Green Parent which can be bought in most newsagents, local supermarkets or read online. These can be very engaging and a good starting point for students to begin exploring specific topics.
Their articles are great for getting information about themes such as breast and bottle feeding, updates on the latest gadgets and equipment available, advice about nutrition and meal planning which are often written by real parents or guest professionals.
There are also journals and magazines aimed at early year’s professionals, Nursery World or Early Years Educator both are good examples and useful for finding out what is happening in the sector. They contain the latest information and are fantastic resources for you and your students to use for research.
Online resources
The BBC, Channel 4 and the NHS can be used to research information on childhood illnesses. There’s also the National Childbirth Trust, a charitable organisation that offers everything for parents, from labour and childbirth to news about where to find local activities and meet-ups.
During this period of lockdown, they also have online ante-natal classes so that parents can still get the support they need, it’s designed to be accessible so everyone who joins in can see each other on-screen too. Fabulous for covering aspects of the subject focused around ‘support’.
Charities
Charities are a good source of information for resources that can be used to create online lessons. Some examples are Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Down’s Syndrome Association and Petals, who provide incredible support for bereaved parents. Of course, there are many more and these can easily be found by putting into the search engine the name of the condition you are interested in learning about. You should find that the results include a charity that supports that condition.
Health and nutrition resources
Nutrition is an important element of the Cambridge National Child Development qualification. Without doubt one of the best resources we have found is the British Nutrition Foundation. Their site covers almost anything about nutrition. Fantastic!
Stay connected
Have we missed any resources you think might be useful for teachers and students? Let us know in the comments below.
We're here to support you so if you have any queries or questions, you can email us at vocational.qualifications@ocr.org.uk or tweet us @OCR_Health. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive information about resources and support.
About the author
Sarah Ash - Subject Advisor for health and social care
Sarah was a teacher of health and social care for ten years. This is her main subject area and her degree and PGCE qualifications are in this subject. She has also taught child development along with several other subjects at KS3 and moderated on the A Level Health and Social Care for another awarding body. Sarah worked in secondary schools and a sixth form college in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex teaching KS4 and KS5 and as a teacher in a care home for young people aged 16-18 and supported them in preparing to leave care. She now works as a subject advisor in our Cambridge office.
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