It has been another interesting session for Falkirk Early Years Pedagogues this year. As we all find ourselves in strange times, each and every one of us across Falkirk can be proud of the continued effort of ensuring our wee people and families feel connected and included, albeit from afar.

This year the Early Years Pedagogues and their teams have continued to strive for excellence and equity as they have explored, researched and implemented a variety of different projects which have impacted positively on the learning and development of their wee people and families within their settings and beyond.

Follow this link here to access the Early Years Pedagogue Sharing Session Presentations. A different format to the market stall sharing event we had planned, I am positive you will find these interesting, informative and impactful. We hope you’ll have a few ‘take away’ project ideas to implement in your own setting when the time is right.

We ask that once you have explored the different projects you complete the feedback form to let us know what you thought, to reflect and to tell us what you’d like to see from the Early Years Pedagogues in Falkirk next year. There is a link on the last slide of each presentation or you can access the questionnaire here.

Here is an overview of what you can expect to find in the project sharing sessions:

Elaine Haughton from Carmuirs ELC has explored the impact of retelling stories on children’s confidence and story awareness. Elaine and her team have also explored risk and resilience outdoors, in particular exploring children’s confidence through a variety of experiences. In turn this impacted on parent’s confidence in risky play opportunities. Elaine also explored how children’s subitising skills develop through play and the opportunities that can be provided to enhance this.

Claudette Wright from Beancross ELC explored the impact of children and their families healthy eating habits and how these changed with the addition of a ‘Fruit Barra’ in ELC. Explore how the experiences and provision of fresh fruit impacted on children within and out with ELC. Claudette and her team have also explored a ‘Nurturing Nature’ project- in particular exploring how playing and learning in a local green space impacted on the positive interactions between children and significant adults. The ‘Once Upon a Story Time’ project looks to including children under 3 years of age, in particular siblings from ELC and across the primary school. Explore how this has led Claudette and the team to build positive relationships with children before they attend the ELC setting and the impact these sessions have had on early literacy development.

Donna Green from Nethermains ELC implements a Froebelian practice into the setting, in particular using Block Play as a focus on developing children’s development in measure. Donna began this project during her time at Bainsford ELC. Donna is also Falkirk’s Froebel Lead and showcases how the Froebel family has grew and gone from strength to strength in the last year. Also explore the Big Chef, Little Chef project which encompasses the values of marvellous mealtimes but focuses on a real in-depth family learning approach. Also explore how the local community has supported children in developing their speech and language skills through “an explosion of vocabulary’’.

Louise Harrison from Bowhouse ELC explores the impact that using wordless books has had on children’s speech and language. Louise uses the Forth Valley speech and language pyramid to explore where children are and the impact of using wordless books has had. Louise also showcases her Family Feast project from her time at Easter Carmuirs ELC- again another family learning project which focuses on improving children and families association with healthy eating.

Helena McPhail from Westquarter ELC has had a primary focus on developing regular access to a local green space. Helena’s ‘’Doon the Glen’’ Project explores the importance of establishing parental support in developing remote access to sessions outdoors. Helena also explored the development of the ELC outdoor space and how she involved children, families and the team in the approach.

Yvonne Robinson is assigned to undertake work with our Under 3 children from across Falkirk. As well as this Yvonne will also have responsibility for spreading and scaling Helicopter Stories across the authority from next session. Yvonne’s project focuses on implementing Helicopter Stories during her time in Easter Carmuirs ELC. Explore the practicalities of implementing such an approach and the impact this had on Easter Carmuirs wee people.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Lisa Boa to the pedagogue team. Lisa joined us in April and will be based within Bainsford ELC. Welcome to Falkirk, Lisa. Lisa has been working on Learning Environments CLPL for the authority. Lisa has been collating tweets around environments and linking this with theory and research to produce a reflective, insightful and in-depth piece of CLPL which I know will support practitioners in thinking forward. This piece of work is still under construction, but fear not, when it’s complete we will be sure to let you know.

If you would like further information you can find each of the pedagogue’s details on the last slide of their sharing session presentation. You can also contact me;

Gemma Paterson (Lead Early Years Pedagogue) at gemma.paterson@falkirk.gov.uk.

Remember you can also use the blog comment section to leave feedback or ask a question.