Aistear's Major Themes

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Aistear is an educational scheme developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) for children aged from birth to 6 years. This programme is based on four themes which aim to help children advance and develop as capable and self-assured learners. Aistear contains four themes which describe children’s learning and development. The four themes are well-being, identity and belonging, communicating, and exploring and thinking. Each theme has four aims which are then broken down into six learning objectives. The themes are also presented in three different age groups; ‘Babies’ covers children aged birth to eighteen months; ‘Toddlers’ deals with children aged from twelve months to two years and ‘Young Children’ addresses children aged between two and a half to six years. …show more content…

Each of the four themes offers a wide range of concepts and recommendations that aim to help adults provide learning experiences for children in working towards Aistear’s aims and goals, making these themes equally important for the young children and the early childhood professionals who work with them. The theme of well-being is about children being confident, healthy and happy. The four aims of the theme of well-being are, children will be strong psychologically and socially, children will be as healthy and fit as they can be, children will be creative and spiritual, and children will have positive outlooks on learning and life (Aistear 2009). The theme of well-being is important for young children and early childhood professionals because it focuses on children developing as people. Well-being contains two key elements: psychological well-being and physical