Category: Learning, Teaching & Assessment

Bringing More Play into the School Day

Play Scotland have created a new toolkit

“Play is key to raising attainment”
Scottish Government

Play Scotland Toolkit

Play Scotland’s Play Types Toolkit is for schools and education professionals, and others working with children in various settings.

Playing is an integral part of children’s day in many educational and childcare settings.  Children play before the bell goes in the morning; at playtime and lunchtime; and after school ends.  Increasingly, playing is part of class time across Scotland too.  Falkirk Council staff an use this resource to help recognise the interconnections between playing, learning, growing, developing, being healthy and being happy.

Who is the Toolkit for?

The Play Types Toolkit is intended for schools and education professionals though we are sure people in other settings will also find it useful.

The aim is to highlight the range of types of play children experience, their vital contribution to learning and development, and to make integration of play into the curriculum simpler.

What do we mean by play types?

Play types can simply be described as the different behaviors we can see when children are playing.

This toolkit uses the play types from play theorist Bob Hughes’ Play Types – Speculations and Possibilities in which he explains that ‘each play type is both distinctly and subtly different from the others.  It is useful to be able to recognise them since engaging in each one is a necessary conrollary for a child’s healthy development.’

Loose Parts Play

The Early Years Curriculum team are aware that many of Falkirk’s EYC settings have been or currently are focusing on developing their use loose parts as part of their provision. Inspiring Scotland have produced a toolkit which we would encourage practitioners within these settings to use to reflect on their provision of loose parts play. The Loose Parts Play toolkit was produced to support people working with children and young people across all age ranges and settings. It aims:
• To raise awareness of the value of loose parts to children’s play
• To provide practical guidance about loose parts play to those who work with children and young people of all ages
• To advocate the use of loose parts as an approach to developing play opportunities at home, school and in the community.

 

https://www.inspiringscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Loose-Parts-Play-web.pdf

Our Creative Journey – New Resource

The Care Inspectorate has launched a new resource showing how the expressive arts can be used effectively in Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) settings.

Our Creative Journey is aimed at promoting good practice in all types of ELC settings.  The resource employs the GIRFEC wellbeing indicators to provide high quality, real-life examples of how settings’ creative use of the expressive arts have had positive results.  We in Falkirk will use this resource in our own ELC settings to look outwards and then reflect on how well our own expressive arts provision impacts children and young people’s lives.

Our Creative Journey

Moderation Hub launched

 

A new resource, the ‘Moderation Hub’, has been launched on Glow to provide practitioners at every level, from every sector, regardless of role and remit, with a package of support for all aspects of the moderation cycle. It is a virtual learning environment providing:

  • Professional learning on moderation (in the form of presentations and discussion/workshop tasks)
  •  An in-depth look at each step of the moderation cycle
  •  A one-stop shop for key documentation (including quality assurance and moderation documents and self-evaluation proformas)

The moderation cycle, which replaces the NAR flowchart, outlines each stage of the moderation process and enables practitioners to develop a shared understanding of standards and expectations in the broad general education.

In Falkirk, we would expect all of our practitioners to engage in this moderation process to support them to arrive at valid and reliable decisions on learners’ progress within the levels of a Curriculum for excellence.

 

Moderation Hub

My World Outdoors

In Falkirk, we recognise that spending time outdoors and particularly in natural environments is good for all of us and especially for children. The Care Inspectorate have produced My World Outdoors with the aim of making a positive contribution to the further development of outdoor play as part of all early learning and childcare in Scotland.  Falkirk Council expect all it’s early years and childcare centres and practitioners to be providing high quality experiences in the outdoors and to be using this resource to understand Care Inspectorate expectations regarding risk-benefit assessment processes.  This resource should also be used to look outwards at the examples of good practice provided in this resource and to use these as a basis of reflection on the quality of outdoor play experiences practitioners provide in their own setting.

My World Outdoors