3
Competency 3
Create and maintain a safe and supportive learning environment
Healthy, positive learning environments give children a strong foundation to explore, take risks, grow, and learn. Supportive environments keep children safe and healthy and include warm, caring relationships and responsive interactions. They also support the whole child, with a strong focus on social and emotional learning. Early childhood educators use what they know about each child and how children develop to create spaces where all children feel they belong and can succeed. Educators also guide children to take safe risks during play, build friendships, share ideas, communicate clearly, and contribute to their learning community.
Reflection questions
Ask yourself these as you read — there are no right answers.
- How well are you currently protecting children’s health and safety? Are there any barriers to being able to keep children safe and healthy? What are they? What changes would you make to better protect children’s health and safety?
- What do you do and say to show children that you value and celebrate them? What intentional decisions have you made about the learning environment or the curriculum to ensure they reflect the cultures and identities of the children in the group?
- When and how do you teach children socialemotional skills like cooperation, collaboration, problem-solving, empathy, recognizing emotions, and emotional regulation? Such times might occur during direct instruction or learning activities, or they might occur during less formal times such as on the playground or snack and meal times.
- How do you help children understand and follow through on behavioral expectations? Do you use modeling? Explicit teaching? What strategies do you use to stay calm and effectively support children when they exhibit challenging behavior?
My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others.
What educators need to be effective
Things to Know
- That positive, supportive relationships and interactions are the foundation for teaching and learning and for building a community of learners.
- Expectations for behavior that are responsive to children’s age, level of development, temperament, and culture.
- The importance of predictable schedules and routines in promoting a sense of psychological safety and positive behavior.
- Science that explains the negative effects of chronic stress and exposure to trauma and adversity on development and learning.
- That good nutrition is fundamental to child development, affecting everything from physical and cognitive growth to emotional regulation.
Skills to Build
- Understanding and communicating with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and children in the early grades.
- Teaching and supporting expectations, rules, and routines in ways that children can understand and be successful in.
- Anticipating and monitoring behavior and using cues to redirect efficiently.
- Identifying possible underlying causes of challenging behavior.
- How to implement tiered behavioral support systems, such as the Pyramid Model.
Habits of Mind and Dispositions
- Demonstrates respect, care, and warmth through verbal expression, tone, facial expression, body language, and positive touch.
- Models interest in diverse cultures and identities.
Focus areas
3A
Health, Safety, and Nutrition
Create a protective environment to prevent injury, illness, and emergencies, and promote children’s physical and mental safety, development, and well-being.
Level 1
- Follows proper health, safety, and nutrition guidelines.
- Protects children’s health by using proper handwashing practices.
- Ensures air and space are free of harmful drugs, substances, and chemicals.
- Pays close attention to changes in children's general physical appearance, interactions, and activity level that might indicate illness, discomfort, or stress.
- Regularly scans the whole learning environment to ensure children are safe and engaged.
- Welcomes and reassures nursing parents returning to work.
- Models healthy eating habits by eating nutritious foods with children and showing positive attitudes toward food.
- Respects children’s hunger and fullness cues by encouraging, but not forcing, children to eat.
- Makes mealtimes joyful, calm, relaxed, and predictable.
Level 2
- Protects children’s health by using proper diapering practices.
- Takes precautions to protect children’s safety, including maintaining proper adultchild ratios, emergency preparedness, and water, pool, and fire safety.
- Follows safety plans and procedures for off-site activities (walks, community parks, field trips, transportation).
- Maintains child records according to regulatory requirements.
- Moves physically around the learning environment and circulates among children, paying close attention to routines, transitions, play, and learning to prevent or interrupt conflict, hazards, or other challenges.
- Plans with families to protect and support breastfeeding.
- Follows safe food practices such as proper handwashing, food storage, and allergy awareness.
- Offers balanced meals and snacks that include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein, following program or licensing guidelines.
- Talks with children about food using simple, positive language to describe taste, texture, and where foods come from.
- Supports independence by allowing children to serve themselves when appropriate and use child-sized utensils.
Level 3
- Recognizes early signs that a child or family may need additional support.
- Seeks resources and extra support when needed to support children’s health, safety, development, and well-being.
- Teaches children about positive health behaviors in developmentally appropriate and engaging ways.
- Honors cultural food traditions by including foods and mealtime practices that reflect children’s families and cultures.
- Teaches children about healthy eating habits.
- Partners with families by sharing information about meals and snacks and inviting families to share preferences, concerns, or cultural practices.
Level 4
- Helps families access additional resources for nutrition, emergencies, development and learning evaluations, and other information.
3B
Positive Relationships and Affirming Climate
Create an environment where all children are seen, valued, and experience a sense of belonging.
Level 1
- Demonstrates respect, care, and warmth through verbal expression, tone, facial expression, body language and positive touch.
- Welcomes all families to the program, group, or classroom.
- Conveys high regard and high expectations for all children.
- Models respect for all children, families, and colleagues.
- Notices and responds to every child’s cues (body language, words, and actions) promptly and consistently in a warm and nurturing manner.
Level 2
- Gets to know all families through frequent interactions.
- Engages in authentic back-and-forth communication or conversation with each child.
- Provides reassurance, comfort, and guidance to help children feel safe.
- Celebrates accomplishments, expresses curiosity about children’s interests, and communicates frequently with each child and family to help children feel valued.
- To model and build inclusivity, affirms differences in children’s identity, language, background, strengths, and challenges; communicates about difference in a positive way.
- Creates an inclusive environment that supports children's ways of expressing themselves and exploring identity.
- Uses positive behavior guidance that promotes all children’s feelings of safety, and that is physically and socially inclusive.
- Understands all the children in the group — what developmental milestones they have mastered, home routines, and family backgrounds.
Level 3
- Considers developmental, cultural, and linguistic appropriateness when selecting items and activities for the learning environment or curriculum.
- Intentionally communicates with each family to show that they are valued and important.
- Welcomes all families and ensures communication and family engagement activities are inclusive to foster belonging, comfort, and connection.
- Integrates aspects of children’s home lives, identity, language, and culture into the learning environment and curriculum through books, storytelling, and art.
- Uses routines and rituals that build strong relationships and help all children feel safe, cared for, and secure.
Level 4
- Provides children with individualized support to help them feel safe and valued.
- Considers how their own past experiences, beliefs, biases (implicit and explicit), and practices might influence their judgment and decision-making about children.
- Embeds cultural experiences and conversations that develop children’s social identities throughout the year, not just during special holidays.
3C
Social-Emotional Learning
Use social-emotional learning strategies and teaching to build community and help children interact, develop friendships, play and learn productively, and foster positive mindsets for learning.
Level 1
- Encourages a spirit of cooperation and community among children.
- Helps children cooperate and solve problems during play and learning.
Level 2
- Communicates positive expectations.
- Models how to express pride in one’s identity while valuing the identities of others.
- Creates opportunities for children to know and value each other’s strengths and differences.
- Helps children empathize and take the perspective of others.
- Helps children plan together and collaborate during play and learning.
- Supports children in practicing social-emotional skills like problem-solving and emotional regulation during routines, transitions, play, and learning.
Level 3
- Plans play-based and project-based learning activities that allow children to collaborate, plan, solve problems, and practice social-emotional skills.
- Intentionally teaches social-emotional skills such as cooperation, collaboration, problem-solving, empathy, recognizing emotions, and emotional regulation.
- Teaches strategies for self-regulation and coping with stress.
- Provides opportunities for children to share beliefs and ideas in an open, friendly way.
- Uses books to engage children in learning about diverse backgrounds and true stories of unfairness and changemakers.
- Teaches children to speak up among peers when they see something unkind.
Level 4
- Integrates social-emotional learning into academic or cognitive activities to help children build positive approaches to learning and foundational skills like selfregulation, executive function, self-confidence, and a growth mindset.
- Observes children’s play and conversation to explore issues of fairness in the classroom or group.
- Equips children to respond to unfairness by inviting them to raise concerns, explore solutions, communicate about issues, and plan individual or collective action.
3D
Positive Guidance
Use age- and developmentally appropriate positive guidance and behavior management strategies to promote cooperation and social interaction, and address challenging behavior.
Level 1
- Models desired behavior.
- Respects children’s boundaries.
- Uses guidance and behavior management strategies appropriate for children’s ages.
- Follows through on expectations and consequences consistently and fairly.
- Intervenes immediately to stop behavior that affects children’s ability to play and learn, or that affects their physical or psychological safety, including rejecting others.
Level 2
- Teaches desired behavior.
- Adjusts expectations for children as needed.
- Provides positive feedback on children’s efforts and desirable behavior.
- Notices patterns in personal emotional responses to children’s challenging behavior and recognizes when becoming angry, irritated, or frustrated.
- Responds to challenging behavior in ways that match children’s individual development and temperament (activity level, adaptability, persistence).
- Helps children learn to respect their own boundaries and the boundaries of others to build self-control and problem-solving skills.
Level 3
- Responds to children’s behavior calmly.
- Develops group expectations and rules with children, as developmentally appropriate.
- Offers immediate, specific feedback focusing on children’s effort rather than their product or accomplishment.
- Considers possible influences on children’s behavior from outside the group or classroom (e.g., home changes, community events, illness, hunger, lack of sleep, trauma, violence, parental depression) when choosing how to address challenging behavior.
- Adjusts approach to challenging behavior when previous strategies are ineffective.
- Uses instances of challenging behavior to help children learn and develop social-emotional skills.
Level 4
- Collaborates to create individualized behavior support plans for children with persistent challenging behavior that include input from families and other program supports available.
- Reflects on personal experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and biases to respond to challenging behavior equitably, professionally, and to help children learn social-emotional skills.
- Provides individualized strategies for children with specific behavior support needs.
- Helps children identify alternative behaviors and monitor their own behavior.
- Intentionally uses different types of feedback (e.g., positive reinforcement, corrective feedback) to support children’s behavior.