Here is a snapshot of some of the experiences the children enjoyed during July and August…
Interests included music, sports and harvesting and cooking our own produce.
Tag Archives: local community
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. Â
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.  Â
We recognise and celebrate the uniqueness of our children in many ways, including respecting and sharing our different family religions and cultures. Â
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.
Summer Activities 2022
We have had a summer full of interesting and exciting experiences – here are just some of them that we shared on Twitter.
The children learned about our local community and services – with visits from the police and fire service and trips to the synagogue, library, park and shops.
They enjoyed harvesting and preparing fruit and vegetables from our garden…
Here is a snapshot of some of the other experiences on offer!
Glenwood Family Centre- Time Capsule
We chose to mark the end of our first session in the new building with a Time Capsule, positioned at the front entrance and within the heart of the community in Eastwood Park, signifying our place in the heart of the community. We marked the spot with a toadstool, which came from the garden of the old building from a wooded area known as Toadstool Tales.
This letter was placed inside the Time Capsule-Â
Glenwood Nursery School opened officially on 4th October, 1976 in a purpose built building on Woodfarm Road, with a capacity of 80 children in the morning and 80 in the afternoon. The first entry in the log book dated 10th November 1976 states, “ the waiting list opened on 13th September, and mothers have been enquiring daily ever since. Even at that numbers are slow to rise. At this moment we have 50 morning and 26 afternoon children. At this date we have one Head Teacher, one Assistant Teacher and five Nursery Nurses.”
The first head teacher was Mrs Elizabeth Anderson (became McDowell). She was succeeded briefly by Mrs Robertson, acting head teacher, in January 1990 before Mrs Karin Gilhooly took on the role on 3rd September, 1990. Mrs Gilhooly retired in June 2013 and I, Lorraine Brown, was appointed permanently in October 2013.
In 2015 Glenwood Nursery School became Glenwood Family Centre and we began operating throughout the year. Soon after, Scottish Government plans were announced for every child to receive 1140 hours of early learning and childcare by 2020 and so, to meet the increased demand, a new centre was planned due to open in August 2020. The new building was to be sited close to the old building. This was a much more prominent site, in the heart of Eastwood Park.
Unfortunately the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in 2020 resulted in the country going into lockdown and the opening of the building was delayed. The new building finally opened during a second lockdown at the start of 2021. We welcomed the first of our children on 1st February 2021, opening only to children whose parents were key workers or vulnerable children who were attending the Hub provision. The first children to step through our doors were Lewis and Cameron Wilkinson. On 22nd February 2021 we fully opened for all children. Our role at February 2021 was 141 children, with a head teacher, a principal teacher, a teacher, a depute head of centre, a senior child development officer, 16 child development officers (including 4 part time), 5 part time early years play workers, 2 business support assistants and 2 janitor/ cleaners.
The new centre has a capacity of 180 children at any one time, with children attending various patterns across the week to meet the needs of the families. Our opening hours are 8am-6pm every week day except public holidays and in-service days.
We hope that upon opening this Time Capsule, you will experience some of the thrill of learning about the past and the history of Glenwood. We have had an eventful journey recently due to coronavirus however the spirit of Glenwood is strong and we hope this continues long into the future.Â
Love and Best Wishes
Mrs Lorraine Brown
Head Teacher
25th June, 2021
   
   
  
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…
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
Abbeyfield Visits
We recently had some visits to our local nursing home, Abbeyfield House. The children and residents played games and sang songs together.
Visiting the Building Site
Recently, some of us visited the site of our new building. We learned all about site safety from Ivor and Honor Goodsite, the safety mascots.
We even had a go on one of the excavators.
Greenbank Gardens Wheelbarrow Competition
We have created a garden in a wheelbarrow as part of the Greenbank Gardens wheelbarrow competition. The theme was children’s books. Our children voted to select Rumble in the Jungle as the theme for our garden and they have been working all week to plant the garden. They added animals and wrote labels for the wheelbarrow. It looks fantastic!
Sports Day
We had a really successful sports day on Friday. Kerry Comerford, active sports co-ordinator, and the primary 7 sports leaders from OLM primary organised the event.
Community Engagement
This year we have developed particularly strong community links with Asda, Newton Mearns. Leigh Hamilton regularly engages with us and supports our children’s learning through a range of experiences including baking, creative, planting and gardening.
ECO day
Last Saturday we had a very successful ECO day. Staff, families and friends all mucked in to ensure our garden looks its best. Bark and stones were spread in Toadstool Tales, a bottle top mosaic was produced, the sand pit filled, vegetable plots weeded, cable drums painted, flowers planted, strimming and power washing carried out and many more jobs. A huge thank you to everyone who helped. 
