Please watch the short video below to see the inspirational journey toward quality Digital Pedagogy undertaken by the team at Crombie ELC.
Category Archives: Sharing Good Practice
Strichen ELC – Digital Pedagogy
The team at Strichen ELC have been working hard this year to embed Digital Pedagogy across their setting. Click on the images below show their exciting journey so far!
Auchterellon ELC – Wider Achievements
In completion of ‘Building better relationships, learning, behaviours’ course on ALDO practitioners were inspired and took the suggestion of implementing certificates to recognise achievements throughout the setting. After a team discussion it was decided that these certificates would be given out, relating to SHANARRI and SIMOA to encourage discussion with the children about “being responsible” “being respectful” “being safe” etc.
The children have responded very well to these certificates, taking pride in demonstrating actions such as supporting their peers and staff, being respectful, caring for the nursery and resources provided. Children are very excited when presented with a certificate to which they can take home and a photo is displayed of them on their Learning Journals and our SHANARRI wall.
This has been a positive addition to our Setting 😊
Fraserburgh South Park ELC – Enterprise
Laurencekirk EYP Author 📚
At Laurencekirk, we have a very talented EYP that has created 4 books that celebrate different learning.
We have been using this in our setting too. At the moment she is in the middle of creating a book with our children here at Laurencekirk nursery and allowing them to discover the process of how to do this.
Partnership working in the Turriff Cluster
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 feed back.
Balance on Pedals
The Live Life Aberdeenshire team shared some positive feedback on the Balance on Pedals resources.
It is lovely to hear so many children are accessing the benefits of learning to balance and pedal in ELC.
Information on how to access here:
Live Life Outdoors presents our “Balance to Pedal” bike loans programme as part of our overall “Bringing the Bike to You” suite of cycling options. This new pre-school programme was initially tested between January and March 2026 and we are delighted to now take it across Aberdeenshire, with our Term 3 evaluation attached for your information.
The bike loan consists of 5 x Balance Bikes, 2-3 Early Pedal Cycles and helmets. Via Early Years we host a Balance to Pedal Workshop to compliment the use of the resources in a pre school setting and the date & venue for the pre-summer workshop will be confirmed shortly.
The £50 (or £100 10 weeks) charge is for mobilisation only, reflecting the size of Aberdeenshire, and there is no charge applied to the children to access the resources as an activity.
Please submit your requests for 2026-27 (school year up to June 2027) and our team will be in touch to discuss. Loan packages are limited and places have booked up quickly during Term 3.
Requests can be made via Live Life Outdoors Cycle Programme- “Balance to Pedal” Bike Loans – Fill out form
Strichen Playgroup – Learning for Sustainability
As a team the staff at Strichen Playgroup have been working through the Care Inspectors Quality Improvement Frameworks, and one area that we decided needed more attention was sustainability.
We decided it would be best to break it down into smaller bits and started with recycling before the end of last term, encouraging parents to send in soft plastics so we could walk to the local Co-op with the children and put the soft plastics in their recycling box. When we got back to Playgroup we looked up what would happen with the soft plastics after it was recycled. Learning that they are used to make carrier bags, bin liners and some different kinds of furniture like the benches at our local woods.
We were invited by the committee at our local woods to help plant some fruit trees. Which the children were delighted about and we go and see the trees each time we are at the woods to check they are growing.
We then moved on to learn about energy, we looked up information on how energy was provided and found out that windmills are used. We had a walk to look at a near by windmill and saw the big blades moving round, there was lots of discussions about what made the blades move and if they were moving slowly or fast. It was generally thought that the wind made it turn, to test this theory we made kites for the garden when we returned. They were blowing around so we tried making our own windmills. We learned that windmills provide an energy called electricity and we use in our homes to watch tv and turn on lights.
Going forwards we are looking forwards to planting vegetables in our garden.
New Machar ELC – STEM
Please watch this short video from New Machar ELC on their STEM journey so far…
Collaborative working in the Turriff Cluster 🥰
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.
