HAPPY NEW YEAR
Before we head into term 3, I hope that you all enjoyed a very festive break at Christmas time and I know I speak on behalf of all of the staff here at Catrine ECC in wishing each of you a very healthy, happy and bright 2021.
You may remember in our December newsletter we informed you of our newest member of TEAM CATRINE who would be joining us in January – well here she is …….
We are delighted to welcome Julie Taylor to our centre. We hope you enjoy working here Julie 🙂
In light of the First Minister’s announcement this week, although we are happy to be back at work, we are saddened by the fact that we are unable to welcome back all of our children. We are especially regretful to our 5 new children who were due to start with us upon our return to the centre today. We hope that we can finally meet you all soon and get back to having lots of fun.
For those of our families who were lucky enough to have been with us during our first lockdown back in March, you will know what is coming 🙂 Families however that just joined us in August I will explain a little more …..
Each day by 10am one of our super duper Early Learning and Childcare Practitioners (ELCP’s) will post a totally tremendous learning experience onto GLOW for you and your child to work on at some point in your day that suits you. Each activity, without your child even realising due to its play based nature, will cover various curricular areas helping to support cognitive development, social skills, mental wellbeing and so much more. At the end of each post the ELCP will leave their email address for you to send in any photos, videos, pieces of work or simply to ask any questions or comment on the activity if you wish to. Photos and videos sent in will be used at the end to create a lockdown memory video. If you DO NOT WISH your child’s photographs or videos to be included in the video for our social media sites then please inform staff of this when you send in the emails. Thank you.
At this point I feel it important to say that with the majority of our staff team also working parents or living with other caring roles within our personal lives – we get it. We understand. And we want you each to remember that these posts are here to provide ideas, give a wee challenge to pass the day, to ensure daily communication with us is easy and accessible but most of all in an effort to support our children and families at a time where some can feel isolated and down. They are not created to add extra stress to what may well already be a challenging day, week, month or even year. With parents potentially juggling work, childcare, home schooling of older siblings, caring responsibilities for elderly or vulnerable family members we ask you to remember at all times to “do what you can, when you can”.
Please also remember that both myself and/or your childs keyworker are still here to support you and your family during this pandemic, so if you ever wish to talk to us please feel free to phone the ECC on 01290 551233 or send us an email on the addresses I will note below.
Alana – Depute Manager – alana.speirs@eastayrshire.org.uk
Lesleyanne – Senior ELCP – lesleyanne.adams@eastayrshire.org.uk
Sherrie -Bumblebees – sherrie.devlin@eastayrshire.org.uk
Carrie – Caterpillars – carrie.hamilton@eastayrshire.org.uk
Rena – Butterflies – rena.dornan@eastayrshire.org.uk
Leoni – Starfish – leoni.gilmour@eastayrshire.org.uk
Jan – Dolphins – jan.wardrop@eastayrshire.org.uk
Michelle – Sharks – michelle.terry@eastayrshire.org.uk
Julie – Jellyfish – julie.nohar@eastayrshire.org.uk
We planned to wait until Monday to begin our daily posts but Lesleyanne is so excited to get started that she has asked to start hers tomorrow, so look out for our very first challenge which might be a good one for over the weekend. We cannot wait to see and hear all about it!!!!!
Thank you as always for your continued support and understanding at this time
Alana Speirs
Depute Manager
