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.

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