New CAPS Subject: Early Childhood Development
Date Published: December 22, 2020
Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Education has announced the addition of 13 new subjects to the grade 8 and 9 syllabus’.
Here is everything you need to know about the new subject Early Childhood Development:
- The Benefits
- What is Early Childhood Development?
- Topics that Will Be Covered
- Aims
- Time Allocation
- Content Overview
The Benefits
The addition of these new subjects aims to help school-leavers branch into a lucrative trade or career without having a matric certificate.
It will also benefit any students who wish to follow the path of Early Childhood Development into tertiary education. This subject will give them all the skills needed to branch off into this field.
What is Early Childhood Development?
This new CAPS subject, Early Childhood Development, will help students understand and explore the cognitive, emotional, sensory, spiritual, social, physical and other aspects of childhood development.
This is specifically catered around childhood development from birth to school age whilst highlighting the importance of this development.
Topics that Will Be Covered
According to the Department of Education, the following topics will be covered in this new CAPS subject:
- The ECD Learning programmes in South Africa
- Healthy and safe environment practises
- Creative Art for ECD
- Resources used in ECD
- Development of young children
- Care for young children.
- Play and its role in ECD
- Language and communications Skills
- Diseases in young children
- Basic first aid principles
- Behaviour Management for ECD
- Diversity in the learning programme
- Mathematical concepts in ECD
Aims
Early Childhood Development Aims to:
- Explore the understanding of how ECD centres are managed.
- Learn how to maintain healthy and safe environments.
- Help students develop relevant teaching and learning resources.
- Explore how babies, toddlers and young children develop.
- Demonstrate to students how to care for young children.
- Exploring play as a method of teaching and learning.
- Understanding how to support communication and language development.
- Learn about common childhood diseases.
- Learning first aid principles.
- Exploring playroom management.
- Tackling diversity in ECD Environments.
- Understanding how to assist in the development of Mathematical concepts.
Time Allocation
For Early Childhood Development, the time allocated must be 13.5 hours per 5-day academic cycle. This subject also has a practical element that must be allocated for.
Content Overview
Here is the content overview for Early Childhood Development:
Author: Andrea Frisby