Author: Essential Elements

The Art of Intentional Center Time: Balancing Freedom and Focus

Center time in preschool is a crucial part of a child’s development. It is a period where young learners engage in self-directed, hands-on activities designed to promote social, cognitive, and emotional growth. The concept of intentionality in this context refers to the purposeful design and guidance provided by teachers to ensure that activities align with your curriculum and children’s developmental goals, fostering meaningful learning experiences for each child.

Intentionality during center time involves carefully planning the learning environment, selecting appropriate materials, and offering structured yet flexible opportunities for exploration. Teachers are intentional not only in how they set up the space, but also in how they observe, support, and interact with children. This might involve encouraging problem-solving skills, supporting social interactions, or extending learning through thoughtful questions and guidance.

For example, in a dramatic play center, a teacher might intentionally introduce props or scenarios that promote role-playing and social negotiation, while also observing how children interact with each other and step in to guide them toward deeper learning when necessary. In the block center, the teacher may provide diverse materials that encourage spatial reasoning and collaboration, fostering both cognitive and social development.

Ultimately, intentionality in center time ensures that children are not just playing but engaging in purposeful activities that promote their growth across a variety of domains. It allows teachers to meet each child’s individual needs, fostering a rich, dynamic learning environment where exploration and discovery are at the forefront of early childhood education.

For more information on intentional center time, training and coaching for your program please contact Susan at (704)277-7473 (susanwitek@hsessentials.com or Kristine at (704)451-3255 (kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.)

Why Conduct Formal CLASS™ During Winter And Early Spring?

The new year and new school semester is the perfect time to provide your teachers with formal CLASS™ observations and targeted feedback. Teaching staff have been in their classrooms long enough to develop a rhythm with their students and their classroom environment. This is the “sweet spot” for coaching and professional development.

Our formal CLASS™ observations go beyond providing scores. We will provide your program with a targeted written narrative for each classroom that will include strengths and opportunities for growth, a comprehensive report comparing  your program scores to the national Head Start averages, and program wide trends that can identify professional development needs for in-service or pre-service training.

Essential Elements offers mentoring and coaching for education managers, education specialists, center directors and teaching team leaders simultaneously as we conduct formal CLASS observations. Teacher feedback and coaching can be incorporated into this process.

We would love the opportunity to partner with you as you invest in program excellence.

For more information or to schedule CLASS™ observations and coaching for your program please contact Susan at (704)277-7473 (susanwitek@hsessentials.com or Kristine at (704)451-3255 (kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.)

New Head Start Performance Standards and the Importance of Self-Care

Head Start has recently updated its Performance Standards to better support the holistic development of young children and strengthen the workforce delivering these critical services. These updates reflect the evolving needs of children, families, and staff and emphasize the importance of a supportive, inclusive, and well-balanced approach to early childhood education.

Key Update in the New Head Start Performance Standards
The revised Performance Standards include a stronger emphasis staff well-being.

The standards highlight the importance of creating a supportive workplace for Head Start staff, recognizing that educators and caregivers need access to well-being programs to perform at their best.

  • The Role of Self-Care in Head Start Programs
    Self-care for educators and staff is increasingly recognized as an essential component of effective early childhood education. The challenges of working in high-stress environments, particularly in programs like Head Start that serve vulnerable populations, can lead to burnout and reduced effectiveness. To counter this, the new standards emphasize:
  • Wellness Initiatives: Encouraging staff to engage in self-care practices such as mindfulness, physical activity, and stress management to prevent burnout and promote long-term health.
  • Workplace Flexibility: Providing a balance between professional responsibilities and personal needs by implementing flexible schedules, paid leave, and access to counseling services.
  • Supportive Leadership: Ensuring that administrators are trained to recognize the signs of burnout and support their teams through regular check-ins, peer support networks, and ongoing professional development opportunities.

Ultimately, the new Head Start Performance Standards reflect a more holistic, child-centered approach to early education while recognizing the need to nurture the well-being of the adults who are instrumental in children’s learning and development. By prioritizing self-care, Head Start programs can create an environment where both children and staff thrive.

Essential Elements offers trainings in Self-Care and Staff Well-Being. We would love the opportunity to help you support your staff. Please contact Susan at (704)277-7473 (susanwitek@hsessentials.com or Kristine at (704)451-3255 (kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.)

Promoting Self-Care For Your Staff

Now more than ever, as Head Start professionals, we are at high risk for experiencing stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Exposure to children and families experiencing trauma, ensuring every child’s (or family’s) basic needs are met, rising administrative demands, limited time, and competing priorities are daily realities. Still, as professionals, we show up, deliver high-quality services, day after day. But at what cost?

While we support families’ goals for better health, well-being, and education, we often neglect our plans in these areas, sending the “do as I say, not as I do” message despite our best intentions.

We have developed customized trainings, based on your program’s staff needs, that take a deep-dive into identifying areas for your professional and personal growth using sections of the Head Start Relationship-Based Competencies tool and research-based strategies to transform your health and well-being. These trainings will spark hope and give participants a real-life game-plan to be their best selves at work and at home. These training can be delivered on-site or virtually; whichever best meets the needs of your program.

As outlined in ACF-PI-HS-21-03 FY 2021 American Rescue Plan Funding Increase for Head Start Programs, ARP funds can be used for staff wellness and mental health support.

You can learn more about these and other support services online.

Please call us at (704) 277-7473 or email us at susanwitek@hsessentials.com to discuss how we can support you.

On The Road Again

We are so excited to be back on the road offering in-person training.  So many of our clients have expressed the desire for in-person training and we are happy to be able to provide it.  While live virtual trainings and webinars have filled a necessary void during the pandemic there are many advantages to in-person training.

  • Your trainer has the opportunity to read nonverbal cues. They can read the audience and adapt the training to best meet your program’s needs.
  • Trainings can be more interactive. Participants have a more active role.  They can practice the content that they are learning during the training.
  • Virtual trainings can be prone to distraction. The phone may ring; someone may stop by the office, causing the participant to lose focus.
  • Team building. In-person training allows your team to come together, building comradery. They can share experiences and learn from each other.
  • Trainings should have content that is customized to the specific needs of your program. Webinars are not customized, and the information can be outdated.

 

We recognize that many of our clients are not yet in the position to have in-person trainings or have found that they fill a need for their program, so we will continue offering our synchronous virtual trainings.

We are currently scheduling training for both in-service and pre-service as well as live CLASS™ Observations.  For information on our training topics please contact Susan Witek at (704)277-7473 or view our services.

Finding The Support Service You Need

While Essential Elements is well-known for our highly effective and interactive training, we offer many additional support services. Our clients have relied on these services for many years. Now, as staffing shortages and the need for classroom coverage have greatly reduced time and personnel available to complete compliance tasks internally, clients are turning to EE for external support.

Is it time to write your grant application? Let us take out the guess work and do it for you. We can write a comprehensive strengths-based grant application (whether it is a refunding application, a re-competition application or a 5-year baseline application).

Our grant writers have a long history of successful grant writing and consulting for Head Start and Early Head Start programs as well as other early childcare and education programs. For the past 20 years, our grant writers have procured grant funds and contracts from local, state, and federal funding sources, and currently have a 100% funding success rate.

Is your Community Assessment up to date with new census data and COVID related data? If not, we can help with that!

We create community assessments and community assessment updates for many of our clients. Our data collection process includes a combination of internal and external data, both qualitative and quantitative data. In addition to a comprehensive analysis of the data (graphs, charts, and key findings for each piece of data), your Community Assessment will include items such as an Introduction, Methodology, Executive Summary, Program Summary, Map of your Community, Description of your Community and a List of Community Resources, just to name a few. Our community assessments go far beyond simply meeting the required element of the Head Start Performance Standards.  We include data unique to your program to make this the “go to” resource document for your program.

Can’t find the time to complete a Wage Comparison Study, Annual report, Strategic Planning, Curriculum Fidelity Check, or write a Policy and Procedure Manual? We’ve got you covered!

You can learn more about these and other support services online.

Please call us at (704) 277-7473 or email us at susanwitek@hsessentials.com to discuss how we can support you.

 

New Year, New Training Opportunities with Essential Elements

The New Year is a great time to assess your program’s strengths and areas where there are opportunities for improvement. While it is a new calendar year, your Teaching staff, Policy Council, Governing Board, Family Service Workers, Management Staff and Support staff are halfway through the program year. This is the perfect time to take stock and “fine tune.”

If you have identified a need to strengthen family partnerships, assist teaching staff with challenging behaviors, create more effective transitions, increase Classroom Organization or Instructional Support scores, or strengthen your staff’s ability to interpret data to drive instruction, the second half of the program year is the perfect time for an in-service training. Implementing trainings to address identified areas for improvement as they are occurring is far more effective than waiting for the next year’s pre-service trainings.

Don’t wait, schedule your training while the year’s challenges are current and fresh in the minds of staff.

Our most requested in-service training topics amidst this year’s unique challenges are:

  • How to Have Hard Conversations (with families or staff).
  • Working with Challenging Families.
  • Change Your Questions, Change Your Life.
  • Self-Care and Team Building.
  • The “Well Oiled” Machine” (CLASS™-based Classroom Organization training).
  • Asking the Juicy Questions (CLASS™-based Instructional Support training).
  • Building Successful Relationships with Families-(navigating making connections during a pandemic).
  • Recognizing and Addressing Compassion Fatigue
  • CLASS™ The Heart of Teaching

You can learn more about our full list of training topics and services online.

Are CLASS™ Observations Important This School Year?

The answer is a definitive yes. And we can help with that.

Most of our clients have faced the challenges of re-openings in January following the winter break amidst another COVID variant, staffing shortages and classroom closures. Directors, Education Managers, Teaching staff and Support staff are having to wear many hats, making it challenging to complete the tasks outlined in their job duties.

If you and your staff are struggling with finding the time to complete internal CLASS™ observations, consider the benefits of external observations. Forgoing CLASS™ observations until staff are available to conduct observations can have a cumulative negative impact on CLASS™ scores. Without the data that comes from comprehensive CLASS™ observations, data driven decision making is impacted. Teaching staff can drift from best teaching practices and the goals set forth from previous observations and coaching.

We are currently conducting comprehensive CLASS™ observations, remotely.  Programs can videotape 20-minute cycles of their classrooms and upload the videos to a secure drive, specific to your program.  Our Certified CLASS™ observers with extensive live observation experience and consistent reliability using the CLASS™ tool, will then observe and score your videos.  We will provide you with:

  • A debrief with the Head Start Director (and your management team if you wish) to discuss the results of the observations.
  • CLASS™ scores for each classroom observed.
  • An Excel spreadsheet with scores from all classrooms and a comparison to the Head Start Grantee competitive threshold and quality threshold.
  • A written summary of individual classrooms, highlighting strengths and recommendations for improvements that can be used by your staff for professional development.
  • A list of program-wide issues that are causing lower CLASS™ scores, as well as recommendations to address and correct those issues.

We are also available to conduct live, in-person observations providing the above-mentioned data for those programs that are able to invite observers into their classrooms.

To learn more or schedule your CLASS™ observations, contact Kristine Cortina at (704) 451-3255 or kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.  You can learn more about our other services at www.HSEssentials.com.

In-Service Training

It has been a busy pre-service training season for Essential Elements and our clients! The Office of Head Start has indicated that programs should be at full capacity by January of 2022 and Federal reviews will soon resume.

With that in mind, now is the time to plan for in-service training. Here is what some of our clients and staff had to say about a few of our most requested training topics during the pre-service season:

Understanding Class™ to Increase CLASS™ Scores – “This was one of the best trainings ever! It was difficult sitting still for two days, but I have great reminders, new ideas, and most of all the desire to have a great year using what we have been taught! The presenter kept us engaged and thinking about how and why we do every part of our day. :)Thank you for setting up this training. I am sure it was expensive, but the payoff could be priceless. :)” ~ Head Start teacher

Creating High Quality Classrooms- “I think today was fabulous! I love the trainer’s personality and training style. She injects humor and reality into content that makes her very relatable and genuine. Her infusion/integration of Conscious Discipline, CLASS and Head Start knowledge is perfect.” ~ Education manager

High Quality Care for Infants and Toddlers- “The trainer was amazing, best training ever and I learned so much.” ~ EHS Teacher

Economic Mobility for Head Start Families- “This training was exceptional and far exceeded my expectations…really excellent, relevant and useful information!” ~ PFCE Manger

School Readiness for Early Head Start and Head Start Professionals- “Great session; it was clear and easy to follow.  I would sign up for sessions with this presenter and encourage others to attend.” ~ EHS Teacher

COVID-19 Strengthening Routines and Procedures- “We sincerely appreciate Essential Elements. The presenter did a fantastic job of connecting with the staff during the keynote and all other training sessions. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in on the training sessions and I learned quite a bit! I’d love to partner with Essential Elements in the future to provide more in-depth training to our staff in the areas of leadership, PBC, and EHS Services. Again, thank you for your support and I look forward to partnering with you soon.” ~ Vice President of Early Childhood Services

In case we missed you during pre-service, we offer the above trainings for in-service professional development virtually and in person. Here is a complete list of our training topics and services.

 

How CLASSY Is Your Staff?

As you plan to reopen and welcome your children and staff back, it is a good time to assess how aware your staff is regarding CLASS™.  For those of you who will be welcoming many new staff members, it may be time to introduce them to the domains and dimensions.  If you have a tenured staff returning, it may be the perfect time to take a deeper dive into CLASS™.  All of the dimensions are braided together to support children’s learning and development and are equally important.  Recognizing the relationships among the dimensions and domains is important when working to increase scores.

Just as no two staff’s requirements are the same, no two CLASS™ trainings should be the same. Our highly interactive and practice-based trainings are custom designed to meet the specific needs of your teaching staff.  Your training can cover the basics of all of the domains or dimensions – or it can focus on specific domains or dimensions.  Perhaps you want to focus on implementing CLASS™ across the classroom day, or maybe you want to look at what CLASS™ looks like in small groups or a whole group.  With our training you get to choose the lens through which you look at CLASS™.

We are excited to once again offer on-site CLASS™ based trainings and continue to offer virtual trainings. Our CLASS™ trainings show what high scoring (and low scoring) classrooms look like.  Hands-on activities may include small-group activities; pair and share; role plays; interactive activities.  All trainings include plenty of opportunity for question and answers.

For more information on our CLASS™ based trainings, or any of our other trainings and services, contact Susan Witek at (704)277-7473 or email susanwitek@hsessentials.com.