Tag Archives: children’s rights

Our Values – Inclusion

by Mrs Clark

At Glenwood, we value the importance of inclusion for all our children and families, and strive to ensure this is clearly reflected in our nursery environment.  

We provide a safe, secure and nurturing environment that is accessible for all our children, creates a sense of belonging and reflects their individual needs, interests and rights.   

We recognise and celebrate the uniqueness of our children in many ways, including respecting and sharing our different family religions and cultures.  

We are fortunate to have 11 different languages spoken by our community of families which helps to create a richer learning environment.  These include English, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Urdu, Arabic, Sinhala, Pashto, Punjabi and Vietnamese.

We have a range of fantastic resources, including books and games, that are invaluable in helping to teach our children about different experiences and what makes them unique, valued and respected in relation to culture, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, identity, nationality, religion, and beliefs.

We use a variety of strategies to support our children’s development and enable them to participate in play, such as Makaton as a whole nursery approach to promote and develop language and communication skills.

We adopt a ‘can do’ attitude to ensure that every child can achieve their potential.

Children as decision makers

We noticed one of our books was torn so we repaired it with sticky tape. Lots of our books were looking tatty so Mrs Brown asked us what books we would like for the nursery.

“I like this kind.”(held up a flap book from the book corner) 

“I like dinosaur books.”

“I have a Yeti story in my house. I’d like that for nursery.”

“I like monster and dragon books. I am not scared by them!”

“I like this book.” (held up Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson)

Adult- “I love Julia Donaldson books…. Do you think we need some more by that author?”

“Yes! We were looking for the Snail and the Whale in nursery but we couldn’t find it.”

“Yes, look at all those ones we could get.” (Looked at inside cover of the book to point to other titles by the same author)

“I like the Gruffalo and the Gingerbread man. I have them in my house.”

“I like the Worrysaurus.”

Here are some of the books we bought, just as requested by the children, along with some others to reflect our nursery values. We look forward to more books being delivered soon, including the ever popular Julia Donaldson titles and some traditional tales.

The yeti story
This book was torn and tatty so we replaced it.
Books with dinosaur characters
Lift the flap books
The Worrysaurus
More books supporting our emotions
Books with monsters
Books reflecting our diversity
Books promoting inclusion
Books to support emotional development

Remote Learning – Our Wellbeing Friends

2021 has been named ‘Year of Childhood’ and while already full of challenges, let’s look for opportunity and community building. Here are some ways we hope that we can work together this year.
At Glenwood, we have the exciting opportunity to work alongside Save the Children with the project they have created called ‘Children’s Places’. Through this project we will work with the children to look at their community using the wellbeing indicators from ‘Getting it Right for Every Child’ – GIRFEC.
Save the Children have created some fantastic resources to help us work together to do this – including our Wellbeing Buddies.
We have prepared a learning at home bag for every child to introduce you and your family to the Wellbeing Buddies, alongside some ideas that will help your child understand what each of the indicators mean for them. There is also a diary for you to record your experiences together.
Here are our 8 Wellbeing Buddies…
Safe Stella
Healthy Henry
Achieving Andrew
Nurtured Nora
Active Aamir
Responsible Robbie
Respected Rhiya
Included Isabella

Don’t forget to come to Glenwood to collect your learning at home bag.

Please remember to share your learning on Google Classroom or Twitter @GlenwoodFC  #Glenwoodlearningathome