Carolyn Sharp, Learning Resource Service, Service & School Improvement Team, Falkirk Council Education Services. Bookbug provides free book packs to children aged 0-5 years. During 2013-14 we gifted the following packs to children in the Falkirk Council area;
For more information on the Bookbug programme, please visit the Scottish Book Trust website.
Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Offcier, Falkirk Council Curriculum Supoprt Team has been supporting 
Glenbervie Kindergarden who are the latest private partner nursery to start using NHS Larbert Woods on a regular basis. Following a parent session on 14th August children aged 3 and 4 are now accessing the site weekly. The children walk from the nursery and stay on site for approximately 2 hours before begnning their walk home. Staff were amazed how well the children have managed this and noticed an increase in their stamina and energy even at the end of a busy session.
During the session on 21st August the children explored the environment and found some very interesting features to play – especially a large puddle.
The staff are also listening to the children’s interestes and some of the children found a hole which they believed to be a fox hole. A conversation about other nocturnal animals then evolved with all children taking part – this is now something that the nursery can take forward as a topic and be able to make it relevant for the children because of their visit to the woods.
All children had great fun – although I am sure the washing machine might have been pushed to the limits!
On Tuesday 16th April Yvonne McBlain from the Curriculum Support Team worked with 27 early years practitioners from the Denny cluster. She facilitated a workshop which explored how practitioners were integrating essential elements of assessment into their planning of interdisciplinary learning. The workshop gave these practitoners an opportunity to work with their establishment colleagues on 2 “challenges”. These challenges were designed to enable collaborative and individual self-evaluation of planning effective connected learning. They also supported identification of the most relevant next steps for partricipants. The session was designed to generate questions as well as providing access and guidance on next steps. Participants said that the session was “useful” “informative” “made you think” and was “well-designed and enjoyable”. Here is a selection of next steps identified by participants:
Further conversations with colleagues around planning
Think more about what our success criteria will be while planning – which should make evidence and assessment more relevant
Develop team’s ability to identify appropriate learning intentions and success criteria
Review approach to planning
Share with other staff (higher classes in school)
Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning teacher, Curriculum Support Team led an active literacy workshop at the Early Years Conference. The workshop explored ways Nursery and P1 are working together to ensure a smooth transition for literacy development. Good practice was shared by Camelon Nursery and Carmuirs Primary School and this was well received by colleagues. 
