Each of the Early Years Officers in the room have their own key group of children. The staff in this room are:
- Linda Downie and Claire Shanks – Senior Early Years Officers
- Rebecca Farnworth – Early Years Officer Term Time
- Lisa Morrison – Early Years Officer Term Time
- Kathryn Walsh – Early Years Officer Term Time
- Kelly Murrin – Early Years Officer
- Lesa Morris – Early Years Officer
- Hayley Callaghan -Early Years Officer
- Michelle Hall – Early Years Officer
- Caitlin McCulloch – Early Years Officer
- Demi Brand – Early Years Officer
- Emer Kennedy – Flexible Post Early Years Officer
- Lorna Somerville – Flexible Post Early Years Officer
- Claire Fyfe – Flexible Post Early Years Officer
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. Please provide these for your child as we are unable to due to Covid 19 restrictions.
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.
