CONGRATULATIONS to Rachael who after an intense interview process has now successfully secured her place as Colquhoun Park EYC’s permanent Senior Early Years Worker.
We are all so happy for you, you worked your socks off for it!!
WELCOME to Clare who we are delighted to say has taken up our Housekeeper post in centre. Clare is already well known to our team and the families within our Colquhoun Park Community as her children have all attend our EYC and have went on in their CP journey. Its great to have Clare as part of our team and we already know she is going to be fabulous!!
Children’s Rights
We have been learning all about our rights in the EYC! Some of the children from Primary 7 came to visit and introduced us to the school and EYC’s Rights Respecting Racoon – Rocky. 
Special thank you to the P7 designer of Rocky, who dressed up and came for a meet and greet with our children. We are currently in the process of organising a family session for all our adults to meet Rocky and find out all about what we have been learning!
Transition to School
Over the past few weeks school and early years staff have come together to carve out this year’s transition programme for our pre-school children.
Last year we introduced transitional opportunities and experiences which promoted the development of skill sets specific to primary school and also, the understanding of expectations, we tried our best to remove what some of the children describe as the ‘scary’ unknown. This year we will continue to create opportunities for children to have lunch in the dining hall, play in the school playground, take part in assemblies, visit the classrooms etc. however we recognise the importance of not only transitioning physically but also emotionally from the EYC to school. We intend to, this year, heavily focus on building strong relationships with all our children and families with our wonderful school staff to ensure that everyone has someone they feel safe and secure and ready to grow, prior to the new school intake in August.
Most of the enhanced transition will happen during the typical EYC day, therefore there will be no need for families to make adaptations to their schedules to accommodate.
We are however rolling out a new initiative this year called the ‘Growing up’ Liaison Project. This would require all pre-school children to be in the EYC over a 4 week period every Wednesday from 1:20pm – 2:20pm commencing after the Spring break. Click on link below for full break
Growing Up at CPPS overview 2025
Upcoming closure dates
Friday 18th & Monday 21st April – Public Holiday
Monday 5th May & Tuesday 6th May – Public Holiday & In-service
Friday 23rd May & Monday 26th May – Public Holiday
Family time/holidays
We understand that many of our families like to take their children out of centre when their siblings are out of school. We ask that if this will be the case for the Spring break that you please contact centre in advance. This enables us to ensure all our staff are deployed effectively.
Changes to Funding
The following email and link was sent out to families of children who are due to attend as 3yr olds in our 2025-26 term (current 2yr olds). We ask if you did not receive this and/or have not already contacted centre that you do so as priority to ensure your place remains secure.
Dear Parent/Carer,
Please find attached communication about the changes to the early learning and childcare funding start date in East Dunbartonshire .
You will see there are options to confirm your position. Please contact your chosen early years centre to confirm your decision by midday on Friday 28th March .
Parents-Carers – Changes to ELC Funding
Family Engagement Opportunities
Spring themed Stay & Play sessions – Monday 14th April 2025 – 10am to 11am or Tuesday 15th April 2025 – 2pm to 3pm
Family Gardening Day – Saturday 26th April 2025 – 10:30am to 1:30pm
Spring Scavenger Hunt – Thursday 1st May 2025 – 5pm to 6pm
Pre-school Progress Meetings – week commencing 12th May 2025 (further details and booking information to follow)
Sponsored Bunny Hop
You should by now have received your child’s sponsor sheet for the EYC’s sponsored bunny hop.
Our Bunny hop will take place throughout the week of the 7th & 14th where children and staff alike will be getting their hop on! All money raised will go towards your child’s treat fund.
Quality Assurance
We would like to ensure we are continuously giving families the opportunity to have their voice heard, empowering our families to be actively involved in influencing our practice and evaluating the service we provide.
In centre we use a variety of frameworks and toolkits to support our quality assurance checks two of which are “How good is our early learning and childcare” and the “Care Inspectorate Quality Indicators”.
We are currently evaluating Quality Indicator
2.1: Quality of the setting for care, play and learning.
Over the coming weeks we may use a variety of different media to try and encourage your input into our evaluation process. We understand that everyone is busy, so we are trying to be creative in ensuring we come up with time efficient methods to gather your thoughts.
EYC Parent Forum
Now our permanent management team within the EYC has been assigned. We would like to move forward with the establishing of our Parent forum.
Thank you to our families who have already signed up for this on our previous request, we will be in touch shortly.
For those of you who would like more information or to sign up to our forum please use the link below.
Parent Forum Sign up / Information request
