A Process-Oriented Monitoring System for the Early Years: Nurturing Every Child Through Wellbeing and Involvement

How is every child doing in your setting? Do all children get the necessary warmth, light and care that they need? Do we leave some children out in the cold?

Excellent practice with children of any age and within any educational context is dependent on our environment, policies and procedures working in an effective way to help each child thrive. This fully revised new edition introduces the Process-Oriented Monitoring System (POMS), which allows educators to assess children’s wellbeing and involvement and identify those needing more support.

Taking a strengths-based approach, the POMS provides educators with a reliable and inclusive compass to tailor their practice to the profile of each child and create optimal conditions for their development. Within the book, the authors:

• Present a clear experiential framework for evaluating children’s wellbeing and involvement, with optional scales and guidelines for collecting data
• Encourage educators to use their observations of the group, as well as partnership work with parents, to build a holistic profile of the child
• Provide guidance on using profiles to tailor practice to each child’s needs to help them fulfil their potential and enable deeper learning for all
• Integrate key areas of competence into ten developmental domains, from fine motor development to understanding of the social world
• Offer all the forms required to effectively carry out the POMS

With a wealth of case examples, this empowering book is an invaluable resource for all early years educators working with children who want to improve each child’s wellbeing and involvement both in their setting and at home.

Ferre Laevers (Em. Prof. Dr.) is Director of the Centre for Experiential Education at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and co-founder of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA). Most of his work is dedicated to the development and dissemination of an approach in which taking the perspective of the child is the key to create powerful learning environments – from early years up to higher education.

Julia Moons is an experienced preschool teacher and was involved in the development of an early years practice that supports the wellbeing and involvement of children. As a member of the Leuven team she made a major contribution to the dissemination of the experiential approach, both in Flanders and internationally.

Bart Declercq is a senior researcher and pedagogue who has been affiliated with CEGO, University of Leuven (Belgium), since 2002. He conducts research, training and development in the field of early childhood, both in Belgium and abroad.