What is reflection and reflective practise? Stork (2023) States that you can gain a meaningful understanding of reflection when you critically analyse one or more previous occasions where you would like to improve. Breaking down how you dealt with curtain situations can help broaden your reflection to allow yourself to improve your own practice. In order to reflect you need to allow yourself to evaluate previous occasions and assess your own actions, emotions, and response to what happened. This can help you look at the bigger picture and give you new perception, broaden your judgement and strengthen your understanding. Stork (2023) also gives his definition of Reflective Practice. Being able to self-reflect and understand how things you did can be made better. Making changes and forming new ideas can lead to the cycle repeating itself. This can allow you to have even more experiences to reflect upon and embrace your new knowledge and continue growing. Why is reflective practise important to EY practise? A Reflective practitioner who can evaluate past experiences in order to adapt and grow is detrimental in education. Using reflective practice when looking back on activities, tasks, planning, and day to day school life allows the Forming of a classroom with a child centred approach where the child is submerged in learning that captures the interest and passion. When practitioners use reflective practice, it can influence critical thinking within there work. It can broaden the outlook and improve skills and techniques for future. Being able to critically understand your work and reflect allows teaching to improve and engaging for the learners which will further and deepen there learning (Birth to 5 Matters (2021). It is important for practitioners to understand what’s happening within the classroom environment. With new styles of teaching promoting a child centred approach means there’s more room for reflection. By using reflective practice and stopping and focusing on what’s happening will allow you to understand the children’s passions and interests and run with it. It is crucial to self-reflect after an activity but also to be mindful and slow down during activities in order to optimise the experience at hand. Reflective practice is equally as important to teachers as it is to learners as this enables practitioners to transform experiences into thoughts, thoughts into reflections and reflections into new concepts and ideas. This enables practitioners and learners to grow and develop new skills and a better understanding of outcomes, why these outcomes occur and what causes them (Roscommon County Childcare Committee, 2017). The theory of reflective practise: Thinking about and interpreting life experiences, beliefs or knowledge. Thinking objectively about ourselves, our behaviour, values and assumptions. Broad contemplation to question and examine knowledge, beliefs and actions for change. Use of reflective methods for personal and professional growth (University of Cumbria, 2020) Gibbs’ model Mister simple shows how Gibbs Model promotes the importance of doing more than just experiencing something but actually reflecting on the experience. Experience alone will not help you improve for next time, you must consciously think about what has happened and how to improve future outcomes. It can be used to help self-development and to enhance your teaching ability. The model can be shown to learners how they managed on their first experience and how they can improve in their future journey of self-improvement. Gibbs Model can be broken down into six parts and even simplified into two parts. The first step is actually describing what’s occurred and what part did you play? Who else was involved? What did they do and what did you do? Overall giving a general overview of the situation. Next the model talks about feelings, feelings before and after the situation and also considering the feelings of others before and after. Moving onto Evaluation Gibbs talks about how to start looking into the situation effectively, grasping what worked well and what didn’t. Also, if and how did other people contribute (The University of Edinburgh 2020). Moving onto analysis Gibbs talks about the positive of negative outcomes. What else could I know about what would have made this experience better. Next you can make a conclusion of all that has happened, outline what has been learnt and how you could learn more when you do it again. Emphasise what you have learnt and what different capabilities will enhance the situation next time. Lastly you must gather all of your thoughts and new information to make a plan of action to tackle it more effectively and enhance your results (Mister Simlify 2020). Kolb ’s model The model Kolb’s created is known as the experiential learning model. The Model is categorized into three stages, a person takes their own experiences and then can evaluate, review, and analyse them. Kolb’s model helps us continuously improve each time we adapt and then restart the cycle (Brown, N. no date). Kolb’s model can be broken down into four parts making it simple and easy to understand. The beginning of the cycle consists of concrete experience, this is when a person has first-hand experience. This may be the person’s first time experiencing the event and then learning from that experience in terms of understanding what happened and what your involvement was. The next stage of the cycle is reflective observation, this consists of firstly gaining a deep understanding of what happened and why you believe it developed the way it did. Secondly you can then benefit from gaining the perspective of other people to help fully understand the result from other points of view and determine whether your interpretation of the outcome and what caused the outcome has changed University of Cumbria (2020). Part three of Kolb’s cycle is where the learner must gain a deeper understanding of their reflection, they must explain what was good and bad and find areas of development that need more in-depth exploration. The last part of the cycle is being able to put the new information you have learnt into practice. This is where the learner can make set goals and make a plan of how they are going to move forward. The new plans and goals need to be manageable, obtainable, and feasible. The important part of Kolb’s model is to keep using the cycle to further your knowledge and gain new experiences. (University of Hull, 2023). Analysis of models – compare/contrast/pros/cons: Difference between (2021) helps us understand the key differences between Kolb’s and Gibbs’ models. The main difference that Kolb’s and Gibbs’ models have is the amount of stages involved in their respective cycles. Gibbs’ cycle is known as the iterative cycle which includes six different stages. The key reason Graham Gibbs created the Gibbs reflective cycle was to provide learners with the ability to improve and progress through experience. Kolb’s cycle is known as the experiential cycle which includes four different stages. The key reason David Kolb created the Kolb reflective cycle was to provide practitioners with the foundations to be able to evaluate their teaching which will allow them to develop and improve. Conclusion In conclusion Difference between (2021) gives reasoning as to why both Kolb’s and Gibbs’ models work and that both provide a platform for development and success.