At Carmuirs ELC we pride ourselves in ensuring Children’s rights are at the heart of our practice.

We have adopted a rights-based approach, ensuring that our children are respected and valued as individuals. To do this we use the wellbeing indicators to ensure that children’s rights are met through everyday experiences.

A different wellbeing indicator is chosen as a focus for each week and shared with the children. We introduce the language and discussing what it means. Each time a practitioner observes children demonstrating the focus wellbeing indicator they would praise and reinforce how the experience/ interaction matches the wellbeing indicator by using the language.

Here are just a few examples of how we link the indicators to UNCRC articles:

Article 19 – We have the right to be safe and protected from harm. As the children sit around the firepit we introduce safe rules to them. We discuss that by sitting far enough away from the fire they are being safe.

Article 24 – The right to clean water and food – We include the children in preparing snack and mealtimes this gives us the opportunity to discuss being healthy. We also have a water station available all day for the children to access and again we would be reinforcing the language of healthy.

Article 31 – the right to play – At Carmuirs our children have the freedom to play either indoors or outdoors.  The outdoor area is open all day. When engaging in the outdoors children can participate in a variety of play including active, risky, imaginative, creativity and curiosity.  We use the local community, woods, and parks to further promote being active.

We reinforce the language of being responsible, looking after and respecting their environment by inviting and encouraging children to help tidy resources away.

Practitioners are always on hand to help by being positive role models and supporting the children to be included during their chosen activities. Practitioners use language that incorporates the wellbeing indicators such as ‘Let us include our friends. They have the right to join us too.’

We are so proud of how our children have taken this on board and it is great to hear children use this language confidently in their everyday play.

So, what is next for Carmuirs ELC?

• We are learning a SHANARRI song to help us remember the words.
• The wellbeing indicator emoji’s will be added to displays, allowing the children to make a visual connection between the spoken word and print.