The safety of the students should receive the highest priority as the major objective of the educational process is not only to teach but also to keep healthy and safe. As the matter of fact, the NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and NAC Accreditation Standards were originally designed to provide certain rules for keeping safety and health of the students. The pivotal purpose of the paper is to highlight the main differences between the standards, discuss the relevance of the rules to the social, emotional, and academic development of children, and examine the implementation of the best combination of norms within the ideal workplace.
According to the NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards, health is considered to be “a state of complete physical, oral, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (Academy for early childhood program accreditation – NAEYC, n.d.). The program provides the detailed analysis of the health standards divided into three areas that deal with specific issues, namely promotion of the health and control of the diseases, control of the nutrition, and healthy environment. In contrast, the NAC Accreditation Standards offer more general criteria of health safety and is divided into eight main principles (Accreditation classroom health & safety standards, n.d.).
The NAEYC Standards describe the elements that are essential to follow to maintain the health not only of children but staff as well. The program is centered on the early childhood development and provides the information regarding the peculiarities of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten; whereas the NAC Accreditation Standards can be applied to all the levels of school to keep the children in the safe environment and to promote health.
The understanding of the needs of children of any age contributes to positive social, emotional, and academic development. Children should be healthy in order to show good academic results and enjoy the studying process (Alper, Thompson, & Baciu, 2015). The NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and the NAC Accreditation Standards were created on the base of the research in the field of education. The programs contain all the needed elements that are essential for the child to develop appropriately.
The NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards examine the food as the element that can influence the studying process. The program discusses the rules of controlling nutrition of children. It should be stressed that safe, friendly, and respectful environment contributes to the positive social, emotional, and educational development. The main rules for creating such environment are critically evaluated in the stated above programs.
I do not profess to be an expert regarding the subject, but I am strongly convinced that the combination of the standards will contribute to the positive outcome. Working with children demands the high level of concentration and attention. General rules such as washing hands and maintaining the equipment safely are as much important as the food control and prevention of the infection disease.
In conclusion, it should be pointed out that health is the main concern of education as friendly and safe environment contributes to the appropriate development of children in emotional and academic area. The NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and the NAC Accreditation Standards discuss the same issues from different perspectives and should be strictly followed to improve and control health not only of children but the staff as well. Wellbeing should be the highest priority and concern of any educational institution.
References
Academy for early childhood program accreditation – NAEYC. (n.d.). Web.
Accreditation classroom health & safety standards. (n.d.). Web.
Alper, J., Thompson, D., & Baciu, A. (2015). Exploring opportunities for collaboration between health and education to improve population health: Workshop summary. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Web.