How to adopt a holistic approach in the Early Years

Why adopt a holistic approach in the Early Years?

In a holistic approach, working culture is positioned as equally important as the curriculum. "If you've got an amazing curriculum on paper, but people are feeling emotionally unsafe... that affects the whole structure and feeling of a setting."

Yasmin explains that a recurring pain point is the tendency to focus narrowly on curriculum or outcomes while neglecting the learning experience in the broader organisational and emotional culture of a setting.

A truly holistic approach ensures you're attending to all systems simultaneously:

• Staff well-being
• Leadership
• Communication between everyone
• The physical environment.

Yasmin believes that staff who feel unsupported or unclear about their role cannot authentically create an enabling learning environment. "We can't expect adults looking after children to be able to authentically create an emotionally enabling environment if they're not feeling nurtured and supported."

Why is wellbeing the foundation of learning and development?

Yasmin describes wellbeing as the central enabler of children's engagement, learning, and independence in Early Years settings. When young children do not feel emotionally or physically safe, their capacity to engage with the environment and learning is significantly limited.

When children feel secure, they can engage in problem-solving and play-based learning, as well as develop social skills.

• "Wellbeing is the key that unlocks everything else" Children cannot engage in learning until their emotional and physical needs are met.
• Cognitive development is happening constantly. For example, care routines are a "golden opportunity to learn about your key child and support that child's wellbeing." Everyday interactions carry developmental significance.
• Confidence and independence are not assumed to develop naturally with age, but are built through nurture and support. In order for children to explore and experience their early childhood education fully, we must support their emerging emotional development - children develop and grow where they feel safe, but "We can't just expect a child to be confident and independent," says Yasmin.

Why communication is key

Yasmin explains how clear, consistent, and multi-directional communication is essential across all levels of a setting:

• Between leadership and staff
• Between educators and families
• Within the staff team itself

Misunderstandings and information gaps directly undermine the quality of care.

Yasmin adds that communication platforms like Famly are a practical solution for reaching all stakeholders efficiently. "Having collaborative software like that... enables us to share our methodology, our values, our principles, and just straightforward information en masse, quickly, so that everyone's on the same page."

Inclusion, neurodivergence, and behaviour as communication

Yasmin believes in moving beyond compliance-based inclusion. Instead, we should create authentic, proactive environments that are enabling for all neurotypes by default, rather than making reactive adjustments for individual children.

• Behaviour is an unmet need: "What is the unmet need that's being expressed for the child and how can we respond to it? How can we decode it as their advocates?"
• Many children in early years settings may have unidentified neurodivergence, making universal design essential. "If we're thinking that we don't have any children with additional needs, it's highly likely that you do, but it is not formally diagnosed or recognised yet."
• Stigma is a key barrier: "Half of these problems are created by stigma. And so if we recognise that, then we can start to erode the stigma and meet children's needs."

What does meaningful CPD and staff engagement look like?

Yasmin believes that conventional e-learning for CPD just isn't sufficient at embedding values and practice. Instead, she recommends more dynamic, participatory approaches, like role play and collaborative workshops, as they're far more effective for staff development and team cohesion.

• Role play and acting out scenarios enable staff to process challenges with humour and openness. "People got all their emotions out. They had lots of fun, lots of laughter, got to know people in different ways and learn five times as much as normal."
• Supervision should be adapted to individual learning styles, with leaders asking, "What works for you? How can we make the best of this supervision?"
• Staff recognition, including public acknowledgement of contributions shared with the wider parent community, is a low-cost, high-impact tool for motivation and retention.

Vision, values, and the three Is

Yasmin shares that a clear, actionable, and widely understood setting vision is a prerequisite for cohesive practice, with the three Is framework (intent, implementation, and impact). However, it is applicable beyond the curriculum to all aspects of setting management.

• A vision must be "understandable," "actionable," and "appealing". If staff cannot translate it into practice, "it's not happening."
• The three Is can be used as a universal reflective tool: "Whatever we're doing, what is my intention? How am I going to do that? Did it work?"