October 2020 – Falkirk Early Learning

Who can believe that the last week of the first term is upon us? It has been a privilege to witness teams across Falkirk work together to ensure their wee people have the very best early learning experience. Our practitioners have gone above and beyond for children and families – we really do have, #fabfalkirkfolk.

Our Early Years Pedagogue team have been working on many interesting projects during the first term. Like everyone else, our team have had to adapt to our current circumstances and develop new ways of working with children, families and teams.

Our Falkirk Early Years Pedagogue poster gives you more information on our role as Equity and Excellence Leads.

We also have to think about the way in which we are sharing our work with practitioners. Each of our Pedagogues have developed a Sway which details their progress in developing different projects. These will be updated monthly and you will be able follow each project as it develops. Follow the links below to have a look at what we have been up to in the last few weeks and get to know our Pedagogues a wee bit better. Remember you will need your Glow login!

Elaine Haughton- Carmuirs ELC

Helena MacPhail- Sacred Heart ELC

Donna Green- Nethermains ELC and Froebel Falkirk Lead

Claudette Wright- Beancross ELC

Louise Harrison- Bowhouse ELC

Lisa Boa- Bainsford ELC

Yvonne Robinson- Victoria ELC and Queen Street ELCC

Our early years pedagogues have been focusing on :

What Matters to Me?

Our What Matters to Me projects stem from Jason Leitch’s TED talk in which he spoke about a what matters to me approach for patients in hospital. We wondered how this approach would look in ELC while thinking about transitions, care planning and responsive and intentional planning. Have a wee look at the video below, we are sure it will definitely get you thinking!

Children’s Creativity

Our Pedagogues will be exploring the progression of children’s creativity using the Duffy Scales. From painting to dancing, our Pedagogues and their teams have their creativity hats on in developing these experiences, spaces and interactions across their settings.

Early Mathematics

Our Pedagogues and their teams will be exploring different mathematical concepts through the use of Cuisenaire rods. We are currently receiving CLPL on this and will begin this project after the October break.

Keep in touch

The Pedagogue sways will also share unique successes and developments within settings that happen out with the identified projects. From nurturing nature, to our fabulous Froebel initiatives, we hope you’ll find these sways useful in sharing our work.

You will also be able to read about our pedagogues in the Falkirk early years newsletter. Look out for our pedagogue ponders section.

You can now also follow us on twitter @FalkirkEYP to keep up to date with our latest developments.

Let us know what you think of our sways and get in touch for more information.

After another week of celebrating all things Maths as part of Scottish Maths Week, it is important to think about what’s been achieved.

First of all, I want to say a huge WELL DONE and THANK YOU to everyone across Falkirk’s ELC community for showing, once again, that you are on a mission! As a community, you are always keen to support our initiatives and with a gentle spark, you really embrace the opportunity to develop memorable experiences for children.

Photo: Courtesy of Sacred Heart ELC Class via Twitter

What have you learned about the children and and yourselves?

The energy and enthusiasm shown during Maths Week is very special, so we need to make sure that we reflect on what went well and what have we learned. When we know this, we can keep going and keep improving.

This year we asked you to think about where is the Mathematics in Art. In doing so, we wanted to provide you with the opportunity to look closely at children as they play but through the lens of asking: “where’s the Maths?”

Photo: Courtesy of Queen Street ELC Centre via Twitter

In doing this, I am sure you realised that, even over a short window of time, the awesome potential that young children have to think and behave mathematically, appropriate to their developmental stage, of course. You will have, I’m sure, noticed children being highly competent in their knowledge of a broad range of essential foundational mathematical concepts.

In using Art as a context, you’ve also been give a reminder that foundations of Maths is more than numerals and counting. Counting is vitally important and we need to make sure we find lots of natural ways, relevant to children, to support them to recognise numbers and count objects. Absolutely.

“Numeracy is not just about being able to count. It is about developing number sense which encourages creativity of thought and it allows children to interact with the world around them”. Realising the Ambition, page 74

But, let’s not forget that for children to develop reasoning skills, essential for the mathematical brain to develop, we must support a range of other essential concepts: Matching. Sorting. Grouping. Categorising. Time. Pattern. Shape. Measure. Movement.

Photo: Courtesy of Wellside Kingergarten via Twitter

So, what next?

You mustn’t lose what you’ve started.

Now that you know what children are capable of, you must keep looking for the Maths within the rich experiences you are offering to children.

Think: how am I seeing the child thinking and behaving mathematically?

Make sure children get the credit for what they know and can do.

After maths week, I am sure children’s profiles will be full of rich observations with numeracy and mathematics featuring prominently. But, for progress to be maintained, you have to keep looking and noting as children play: What maths am I seeing now? What is new? What is different? What is important? What is surprising?

Support and Guidance

This is a good time to remind you all about the excellent resource from Education Scotland. You can find the materials on the National improvement Hub here.

Please take time to read the Guidance Document first of all. It’s only 8 pages long but it talks specifically about Early Level and the important connections with Realising the Ambition.

The other materials, for each of the key areas of Numeracy and Maths within the curriculum, have an Early Level section. I am delighted to say that there is an explicit and very helpful focus on play pedagogy and in keeping with Realising the Ambition.

You can also take a look on Twitter at the fabulous learning throughout Maths Week in Falkirk by clicking the links below:

Falkirk Early Years Pedagogues

#ArtyMathsFalkirk – Keep Going