Professional Development

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Risk Posters

Two specially commissioned A2 size posters, showing both indoor and outdoor play spaces - showing that risk in play is not only natural but also desirable! Captioned with 'Where there's play, there's risk!' and 'No risk, no play!' Great for play settings and for use as training aids. Price includes postage and packing - loosely folded. Sold in a pair.

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Essential Skills for Managers of
Child-Centred Settings

Shelly Newstead and Emma Isles-Buck

Managers in child-centred settings need to be able to draw on a wide range of personal and professional skills to ensure that they are providing the best possible service. Now in its second edition, Essential Skills for Managers of Child-Centred Settings looks at how you can develop the key leadership skills needed to manage people to achieve excellent settings for children. Shelly and Emma outline ten 'essential skills' for leading and supporting those around you in your child-centred settings and offer sound advice so you can build your personal and professional skills and become a confident and assertive manager. With a balance of both accessible theory and practical application from a wide range of settings, this book explains management theory and will help you to develop the skills to:

  become a confident leader

  set clear aims and objectives for your setting

  manage your time effectively

  make decisions and implement change

  build and develop a team

  reflect on and develop practice

  deal with difficult situations and people.

This book also contains case studies and 'real-life' scenarios from managers undertaking training with the authors which will ensure you provide an excellent service in your setting. No manager or leader should be without this user-friendly guide!

I found this book really insightful and a manageable read - everything is broken down into easy to read chunks. I've taken a lot from the book and the main message for me was that you need to be confident about your ideas, vision and objectives as a person as well as a manager.
Laura Watkins, manager at St Mary's Fun Club, St Mary's C of E Primary School, Barnsley, UK

Available from www.routledge.com.

Playtime!

Shelly Newstead

Based on work undertaken by Shelly Newstead with schools in Wigan, this textbook and DVD is for anyone working in or with schools which want to improve the quality of children's playtime.

The book looks at the key elements of providing really great playtimes and gives practical advice on how to support a whole-school approach to play. The DVD features staff and pupils talking about the challenges that they faced in changing the way that playtimes worked in their school as well as lots of really great footage of children demonstrating what a great playtime should look like in practice!

This book is bright and colourful and the photos help to set the scene. I like the play footage on the DVD; this was really useful. It presents the issues in bite size chunks with sufficient detail. I believe the best way for it to be used is as support material for some hands-on-training with staff (both playground, teaching and support staff, and Governors). It is vital to get buy-in from all concerned. I will be sharing the pack with all my team - particularly those who have little or no practical experience of playwork.
Alison Terry, Senior Childcare Development Officer

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Play at School

PLAYLINK's Play at School Scheme - which takes a whole approach to improving playtime in schools. Contains a report on a PLAYLINK project with three primary schools. Raises general points about organisational change.

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What is Child Abuse? - A2 Poster

Really useful visual aid for training courses - 14 cartoon-type drawings which enable training participants to discuss the four types of child abuse sensitively and creatively. Also useful for wall displays in family centres, community buildings, youth centres etc to raise awareness of this important issue.

Common Threads makes a donation to RAPCAN for every poster sold, helping to prevent child abuse in South Africa.

I have used the 'What is Child Abuse?' poster as a very effective discussion focus with several groups of mature students. It has been very useful in encouraging students to discuss issues that they possibly would not have put under the general term of 'abuse'. A useful and worthwhile resource.
Sheila Riddall-Leech

Excellent resource, easy to use, works well for 'ice breakers', good for 'fun' refocusing after lunch, ideal as back up for after tests, good printable format, good to use as 'stimulators' when discussing a particular topic.
Brian Baughan

For more information about RAPCAN see their website: www.rapcan.org.za.

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