Each of the Early Years Officers in the room have their own key group of children. The staff in this room are:

• Lorna McGuigan – Senior Early Years Officer
• Sam Davidson – Early Years Officer
• Grace Wilson – Early Years Officer
• Danyella Philip – Early Years Officer
• Michelle Macfarlane – Early Years Officer
• Linzi Roe – Pupil Support Assistant

The importance of Play

Play is how young children learn, develop and understand the world around them, the skills that are developed during play give children the foundations needed to continue their learning journey. The nursery environment is designed for children to experience many different play experiences. These experiences will help develop their language skills, emotions, creativity and social skills. Play helps to nurture imagination and give a child a sense of adventure. Through this, they can learn essential skills such as problem solving, working with others, sharing and much more.

What to expect in nursery

The nursery has a child-centred philosophy, this means that the children’s interests and play lead the learning. We have a skilled staff team who observe and facilitate the play to support the children to learn and develop at their individual level to meet their needs.

Each child has their own personal learning journal (PLJ). The observations made for each child are documented in their PLJ and this is linked to the early level of the Curriculum for Excellence. Your child’s learning journal is shared with you regularly and we welcome you to contribute to this at any time, as we know that children have many lovely learning experiences at home.

The nursery environment is designed to offer children the opportunities and experiences that will allow them to explore and discover the curriculum through their play.

Each of the nursery rooms opens out to the nursery garden area which has different areas and is completely enclosed for safety.

We operate a ‘free flow’, ‘open door’ system in all weathers so that children are able to play outside whenever they choose. The children are encouraged to become independent in putting on or taking off the outdoor jackets, trousers and wellingtons.

We believe that the outdoor space is ‘half of the whole’ nursery learning environment and as such you will see staff observing the children at play, noting significant learning and skilfully planning how the interest shown can be taken forward.