As a result of school and nursery closure we are aware that as parents you may be worried about how your children will learn over the coming weeks.   We also know that this time of uncertainty and change in routine can be very unsettling for children.  Many of us are parents ourselves and know that extended periods of time at home can be challenging as a family.

Please do not panic about providing the curriculum for your children the way settings do. At this young age all learning in settings is through play and play is the greatest work a child can engage in.  Thanks to the huge commitment of staff throughout the authority we are pleased to offer a wide range of suggestions on activities for you to do with your children at home in the Sway below.

Every Monday, we will update our blog  with further tips and ideas of how to support your child’s learning at home.  A link to these will also be posted on our FCEYcentralteam Twitter  account @FCEYteam.

If you would like to share the home learning adventures you have with your child, please feel free to tweet them adding #FCLearnAtHome.

Go to this Sway

 

Creating an ‘Environment of Wonder’.

St Patrick’s ELC’s journey to developing a quality environment as part of providing 1140hr provision.

As a staff team, we were passionate about creating an environment that cultivates children’s curiosity, creativity and wonder. We worked very hard to develop a shared vision for our new 1140 environment, recognising the impact our environment has on our children as ‘the 3^rd educator’.

This involved looking inwards: self-evaluating our environment and the barriers we faced e.g. comfort, light, space, barriers to free flow play to our outdoor environment; using Building the Ambition to support our self-evaluation.

 

Next, looking outwards: Falkirk Opens its Doors to Play was an immeasurable support – getting into other quality environments and taking inspiration from good practice within our authority. Following these visits, our team consulted on aspects of good practice which would fit our vision. In addition we took time to research examples of quality environments and resources shared on on-line platforms which proved to be a great support to us. We found inspiration from pages that share their environments and resources, such as ‘The Curiosity Approach’, and as a team, we shared and discussed ideas, challenging each other in a supportive manner.

Then looking forwards: by getting involved in all aspects of planning for our environment. We worked very closely with our Architect at the planning stage, making changes such as; the position of our kitchen, adding extra windows, changing the boundaries of our garden etc. As a team (including our children, parents and staff) we made all decisions re. décor and furnishings of our environment.

 

 

 

Staff embraced the opportunity to make real environmental change and a shift in the resources we provided to support learning. Staff created a wish list in keeping with our research and carefully selected interesting items and resources to purchase with our budget.

  

Staff worked extremely hard to get all our resources in place and create a warm, welcoming, homely environment for our children and opened our doors in August on the first day of term to our children as an Early Learning Centre delivering 1140 hours of provision.  At that point, our environment continued to be an on-going daily priority. It was a focus of our daily dialogue; discussing how our children were using their environment, changes that were required and improvements we could make.

“Play is the Way! Come along to find out first-hand how Falkirk teachers and early years practitioners are using Froebelian principles and play-based pedagogy to deliver inspiring, motivating and developmentally appropriate learning experiences for Falkirk’s bairns. 2018 ENTHUSE winner, Nicola Connor, will also join us from West Lothian to share practical ways to promote STEM in your classroom through play and playful learning experiences.”

The Falkirk early years team are looking forward to hosting this play-based pedagogy workshop on behalf of Education Scotland’s Teacher Leadership Programme on February 10th 2020 in Camelon Education Centre  from 4PM-6PM and hope to see lots of our own Fab Falkirk folk there.  Please use the link below to sign up and come along to hear about some of the great learning and teaching happening in our schools and early learning settings.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/play-based-pedagogy-sharing-practice-session-tickets-86787891921?aff=ebdssbdestsearch