Please watch this short video from New Machar ELC on their STEM journey so far…

Partnership Working in Turriff Cluster

One part of our improvement plan this year at Turriff Nursery was to improve our partnerships with other ELC settings in the Turriff Cluster, this included other partner providers in the area.

EYLP’s and managers met to discuss what we wanted from this, the answer was the same from all, to get to know each other to form better working relationships and share good working practices.

Recently, Monquhitter Nursery hosted our first cluster meeting; Children’s Rights was on the Agenda. It was great to see how different settings implemented UNCRC and everyone took back ideas to share in their own settings.

Monquhitter Nursery also invited EYP’s from the cluster to look at their nursery, chat and share documentation; this happened over two evenings so everyone had a chance to attend.

We hope to continue in this way and dates have been organised for Turriff Playgroup to facilitate the next meetup.

Quotes from Attendees:

Jo: the cluster meetings are great, I went to my first one last week, it was really good to see how other practices do things.

Ashley: we all enjoyed the visit today and I found the meeting really helpful. Loved seeing the floor-books.

Louise: It has been great to welcome everyone over and have an opportunity to come together and share practice and build relationships with each other. We got lots of positive feedback.

Since completing our Bookbug Training we have had various sessions in nursery, inviting parents and families. We have tried different times in the morning and afternoon. We always have a few parents attend with siblings. Before Christmas we had a Bookbug in the community, held at the Church Centre. A few families from the community came along and enjoyed the session with the nursery.

This term we had a Bedtime Bookbug in the school hall. This was at 6pm and children came in their Pyjamas. We had 27 children attend this session. Children from the nursery, from the school and the community. We made the room cosy and comfy and dark with a few lamps. We got very positive feedback from all the families that attended.

We also had a Grandparents Bookbug session, we ran this alongside Pancake Day. We baked pancakes and invited the Grandparents in for a pancake then they stayed for a Bookbug session. This was well attended and everyone involved had something positive to say about the morning.

We have been supporting our children with learning about keeping safe and their rights. 

As part of our quality improvement at Denman pre-school the staff and I focussed on introducing SIMOA the elephant to the children and their parents. 

In pre-school we use SIMOA as an everyday resource to embed safety and to ensure children feel safe. For example, we ask the children if SIMOA would think they are being safe in everyday activities. 

We shared all this information with our parents and once we felt the children started to have an understanding of why SIMOA is in their setting we sent him home weekly with the children alongside a diary so the children and parents could record how they keep safe out with the pre-school environment. 

As SIMOA the elephant supported the children to understand safety we recently introduced Paddington as our rights respecting bear who now goes home along with his own diary to support children to learn about their rights. 

The team at Kellands ELC have worked extremely hard to enhance the indoor environment to better support little learners. Thoughtful improvements have been made to create an engaging, welcoming and stimulating space that encourages children to explore their interests and follow their curiosity. The environment has been carefully developed to promote inclusivity and communication, ensuring that all children feel valued, supported and able to access learning opportunities. These changes reflect a strong commitment to delivering a rich, meaningful curriculum through high-quality experiences that inspire engagement, independence and a love of learning.