Enterprise in Early Learning and Childcare

ELCOne of the ambitions of Scotland CAN DO is “to achieve an education system with entrepreneurship and innovation at its core.” This ambition does not begin with secondary, or even primary schools – early learners can get involved too!

Scotland’s Enterprising Schools is a new resource available for educational practitioners to inspire enterprising and entrepreneurial learning across the curriculum.  The resource was developed in partnership with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government and was launched at the Scottish Learning Festival in September last year.  Key features include:

  • Practitioners have the opportunity to join the professional learning network where they can take part in discussions about enterprise education and collaborate with colleagues to share ideas and resources.
  • A professional reflection tool helps practitioners gauge where their establishment is on its enterprise journey and will support the self-evaluation process.
  • The resources and ideas highlighted will be very useful when curriculum planning and will help schools/early learning and childcare settings embed Building the Curriculum 4 and Developing the Young Workforce agendas as part of their improvement plans.

Any number of practitioners can join the professional learning community and members of the network will receive an “Enterprising Schools Proud Member” badge for use on your website.

Scotland’s Enterprising Schools was developed to encourage educational practitioners, from early years through and beyond senior phase, to develop a holistic approach to enterprise and entrepreneurial thinking. This is achieved by providing a platform to recognise settings for their work in this area.

Our first Early Years case study came from Ardnahoe Nursery School in Toryglen, Glasgow. The full case study is available on our website and highlights how the project came about, how it developed and all the skills the children learned along the way – click here!

This is just one example of enterprise in early learning and childcare and we are keen to hear from more settings about the great work taking place across Scotland. Are your children involved in exciting, enterprising activities? Then please contact Heather Hughes – (Head of Programme) who will be happy to discuss how you can get involved.

Need help getting started? Our Partner page is full of organisations willing to help you on your way to developing a CAN DO spirit, making learning more enterprising and entrepreneurial.

To keep in touch with Scotland’s Enterprising Schools, you can join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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