All posts by Mrs Thomson

Key Changes

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At the Learning Session 4 on 28th and 29th January 2014 the focus on the ‘Key Changes’ were highlighted.  Since January 2013, local authorities across Scotland have been working on improvement and interventions to address the identified issues and it has become clear that there are mutual areas of improvement happening across Scotland.  The Key Changes that have been identified are:

Early Intervention in Maternity Services

Attachment and Child Development beyond maternity services

Continuity of care in transitions between services

27-30 month Child Health Review

Developing parent’s skills

Family Engagement to Support Early Learning and

Income Maximisation

Falkirk CPP will now look at the Tests of Change that have been taking place and relate these to the Key Changes.

Every Day’s a Learning Day

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Workstream 3 have recently being looking at the quality publication from Education Scotland which is distributed through the Book Bug Initiative.  Having contacted Education Scotland to ascertain whether more copies of this useful resource were available we discovered that they would no longer be in print when the current batch are all distributed.

Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services worked with Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Support Officer to create short animations that could highlight to parents/carers  the importance of the interactions they have with their child from birth.  These are separated into 3 short animations for health and wellbeing, literacy and maths.

Questionnaires have been distributed to early years practitioners to ascertain their awareness of this resource and how they use this with parents.  Once returns had been received practitioners were then sent out the link to the animations to gain their opinions.  These animations have been received well and staff are confident that they could be used at Induction Sessions with parents or as part of the enrolment information process.  A QR Code has been set up for each of the animations and it is hoped that this will enable parents to easily access these from visible posters in many service provider venues around Falkirk, for example nurseries, doctor surgeries and libraries.

Please take a few moments to watch these videos and share with parents.  It is hoped that ‘Every day’s a learning day’ will become a familiar “motto” around Falkirk and Forth Valley  Watch this space for more information.



Dates for your Diary

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The 2014 dates have been arranged for the Falkirk Early Years “Home” Team:

  • Mon, 31st March 2014, 3pm to 5pm
  • Mon, 25th Aug 2014, 3pm to 5pm
  • Tues, 25th Nov 2014, 3pm to 5pm

 The purpose of notifications of these dates in advance is so that you can get them in your diary.   You are not required to respond to this e-mail.  You will be sent an invitation prior to each session, with further information, when you will be asked to register.

 Please actively share this information with any colleagues who may be interested in attending.

 If you require any further information, please contact the EYC Team on 01324 6668

Away Team Meetings

Falkirk Early Years Collaborative “Away” Team

 All sessions take place in Camelon Education Centre

 Tues, 25th March 2014 (Training Session)   (9.30am to 12.30pm)

Tues, 29th April 2014 (1.30pm to 3pm)

 Wed, 28th May 2014  (12.30pm to 3pm)

 Mon, 16th June 2014  (12.30pm to 3pm)

 Mon, 28th July 2014  (1.30pm to 3pm)

 Wed, 20th Aug 2014  (1.30pm to 3pm)

 Tues, 30th Sept 2014  (1.30pm to 3pm)

 Wed, 22nd Oct 2014  (9.30am to 12noon)

 Wed, 5th Nov 2014  (12.30pm to 3pm)

 Mon, 1st Dec 2014  (1.30pm to 3pm)

Tests of Change

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Recently Tests of Change have been carried out to ascertain the best way forward to assess the Stretch Aim for Workstream 3.  At present the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires are being used to identify children for referral to POPP – in conjunction with this there is a PDSA to test whether the information that we receive from the SDQ would in fact inform practitioners of the developmental milestones that children have achieved.  As well as SDQ being tested, we are also currently looking at a variety of other assessment tools – such as ASPECTS (CEM Nursery Assessment), Education Psychology’s assessment for early entry into Primary 1 and also The Department of Education’s Early Years Outcomes.  For more information on this Test of Change email Karen.thomson@falkirk.gov.uk

The Improvement Method and PDSAs

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The Early Years Collaborative Method for Improvement provides a METHOD and a CULTURE to:
– learn from each other
– test ideas
– implement changes
– spread improvement

If we want to make changes that bring about reliable and sustainable improvements we need a method. Model for Improvement has been adopted by the Early Years Collaborative – it is simple to apply and enables testing to provide confidence that a change will achieve improvement. It can be used to test out new ways of working at all levels.


The Model for Improvement is made up of 2 parts – the thinking part and the doing part
The 3 questions – the thinking part prepares you for the test by asking the ‘so what’ question
They need to be thought through, answered and written down by the improver to ensure that they, and therefore their colleagues, are clear on the benefits to them and their work.
The Plan Do Study Act cycle is a simple tool that is used to test out ideas that will improve your systems and processes while learning what works and doesn’t work.
It is a structured approach for making small incremental changes to systems that allow you to test on a small scale, learn from successes and failure and redesign as you go.
It builds learning and enables practitioners to develop knowledge about their own system as they continue to upscale tests when success has been achieved.

Spreading the Word

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Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, has recently presented awareness raising sessions for all Nursery and Primary Head Teachers,   Nursery Teachers and Management Network Sessions as well as a session for the QIO Team and Curriculum Support Staff.

This session gives an overview of the set up of the Collaborative and the commitment that Falkirk has made to this as well as explaining the Test of Change and PDSA cycles that are relevant to the Model for Improvement for the Early Years Collaborative.

Please feel free to have a look at this presentation and use with early years staff if you feel appropriate.  If you have any further queries, please contact Karen on 01324 503764.