For us, participation in the day-care centre or at school means involving children in daily life in a way that matches their respective ages. It means involving them in the drawing up of activities and letting them have a say in decisions that affect them, their group or the facility as a whole.

We initially look at children’s everyday practical decisions – where, what, with whom they want to play. Which materials they want to use. What their food choices are. Who gets to change their nappy.

The partial opening of the groups as well as the set-up of areas according to themes support the children in the process of pursuing their interests. As they grow older, the forms of participation change. Children’s conferences and panel structures provide the setting for children’s concerns to be talked about, and solutions to certain topics are sought to be found. The educational staff are in active dialogue with the children. In this role, the adults accompany the children in finding solutions.

Once the children have become familiar with the principles of co-determination, a certain momentum is reached and they increasingly want to be involved. The question about which playground the group goes to, which food is to be ordered for the following week or which project should be looked into next is discussed in the group and determined in a democratic process. Common tools for such elections are, for example, photos of rooms or materials. In the voting process the children’s votes are symbolised with little stones or sticky dots, and decisions are taken in a way that is clearly visible and relatable for everyone.

We work with various approaches in our day-care centres and at schools to achieve co-determination. The nurseries use different methods than the kindergarten groups. The pre-school groups are mostly so well-acquainted with the procedure that taking decisions together and taking responsibility for these is a matter of course.

Portfolio

An important part of the observation and documentation procedure of the educational and learning stories* is the portfolio work. Each child receives his or her own portfolio (folder) in the day-care centre and/or during afternoon care. It’s important that the child knows that it is his/her own portfolio and that he or she can decide him- or herself who may look at it and what goes inside. Part of the work with the portfolio also includes the parents bringing along a story from the holidays or creating About Me profiles with their children.

* The procedure was tested by the German Youth Institute (www.dji.de) in a pilot project at 25 kindergarten facilities; the observation and training material was published in 2007. Since then, it has become one of the most widely used documentation and observation procedures in Germany.

Aspects of the portfolio work

• Individual documentation on educational steps for each child
• The child’s everyday life in the facility, an insight into the family as well as interests, skills and aptitudes are illustratively documented
• The child and his/her parents are actively involved in the process of creating the portfolio
• Portfolios encourage children to document their own activities, promoting self-assessment and self-reflection
• Vision: transfer of the portfolio to the primary school is theoretically possible and generally desirable to support teachers in being aware of the children’s resources and skills right from the start

Whether German is their first or second language: all children in Finkenau’s facilities are offered many linguistic opportunities every day, they delve into a “language bath” (immersion). Books, conversations in the group, songs and rhymes spark curiosity and promote the willingness to express themselves in versatile and nuanced ways.

Day-care centre Plus / Language day-care centre: The Finkenau day-care centres Sonnenschein I, Sonnenschein II and Kinderhaus Furtweg are taking part in the federal government’s language support projects, which provide additional services for children with foreign-language parents. Further information on the federal government’s programme “Sprach-Kita: Weil Sprache der Schlüssel zur Welt ist” (which translates as “Language kindergarten: because language is the key to the world”) is available here.