Tampere Early Childhood Education and Care – Working together for the best of the child

In Tampere’s early childhood education and care, all children are allowed to exercise and participate in hobbies. Learning, inclusion, wellbeing and equality are key themes. Children are encouraged to be physically active, and activities developing basic motor skills are carried out, for example, via mobility, playing and hiking.

Doing things together, enjoying physical activity, and learning- and competence-based experiences aim towards a physically active lifestyle. Opportunities for calming down and rest are also offered each day.

Full nutrition is offered to the children. The child becomes familiar with the world of food through each one of their senses, through exploration, play and sampling. The child is encouraged to form their own opinions on food, ingredients and meals, as well as to be positively curious about food and eating.

Positive pedagogy is based on finding and emphasising children’s strengths. The children's abilities and skills are taken into consideration in interactions and encounters.

A positive perspective supports the development of a healthy and positive self-esteem and self-efficacy, and is part of all education and care. The goal is for the child to feel that they are capable, competent, and learning things.

Early childhood education personnel and guardians play an important role in a child's perception of themselves and their capabilities. The safe embrace of an adult as well as the practice of emotional and interaction-based skills support the child's learning capabilities.

Early childhood education promotes the values and goals of a sustainable future in a variety of ways, especially from the perspective of an ecologically and socially sustainable future.

The aim is to study the various dimensions of sustainability and to support children's skills and values in order to achieve their goals.

In early childhood education and care, we believe that everyone can join in. It is a question of a value foundation for the organisation of early childhood education and care activities as well as a holistic way of thinking, leading to solutions that strengthen the child's participation and various flexible teaching arrangements. This is called inclusion.

The principles of inclusion are visible in practice:

• equal rights for all children
• the primacy of the best interests of the child
• parity
• equality
• non-discrimination
• appreciation of diversity
• social inclusion and communality

Inclusivity is realised when the attitude is in line with these principles. It is realized through high-quality pedagogical activities, competence in special pedagogy, the commitment of educational and teaching personnel to principles of inclusivity, adapting the environment to suit the children, and through co-operation with parents and multidisciplinary professionals.

As a rule, every child has the right to early childhood education and care within their own group of children as well as support in  development, learning and wellbeing. Inclusion is thus also related to the resources needed for support, the choice of the child's early childhood education and care venue, and the expertise of the personnel.

Inclusion should be seen as a continuous effort to encounter and learn from diversity. Linguistic, cultural and conceptual diversity is respected and appreciated. In a group of children, everyone has different backgrounds. The diversity of the community is part of the day-to-day life of early childhood education and care. People are different on the one hand and the same on the other.

Digitality is part of the society in which a child grows. Digital competence is needed in people-to-people interaction as well as in social functioning and learning.

Strengthening digital competence promotes educational equality for children. The task of early childhood education and care is to support the child's understanding of digitalisation in co-operation with their homes. Children's digital competence is being developed in accordance with the Uudet lukutaidot (new literacy) programme.

Opportunities to practice, experiment and produce content oneself as well as together with other children, using digital tools, promote children's creative thinking and collaboration skills in addition to multiliteracy skills.

Art and culture play an important role in the child's growth and development. Art is used to learn communality, emotional skills, and consideration for others. It helps you to get absorbed in someone else's world of experience and to understand different things.

In Tampere’s early childhood education and care, children are able to study culture and various art forms in play and by doing things themselves. Children's ideas, inclusion and the expression of their own culture are at the heart of the cultural activities of early childhood education and care.

Children visit the city’s cultural destinations, libraries and Rulla, Tampere’s children's cultural centre, as part of their early childhood education. Cultural and leisure services provide early childhood education with activities related to various forms of art, such as museum visits and workshops.