Yokerburn Early Years
Extended day centre within Yoker area of North West Glasgow. Nursery caters for children from 0–5 years from a multitude of cultural, social, economic and learning backgrounds.
The establishment has been raising awareness of job roles within local community by working with a range of different partners . This inspires the children and provides an early introduction into the world of work. The children have been working with a local care home to build up confidence and familiarity of the world of work. The children have experienced several different roles within the care home including: nursing, cooking, hair and beauty and table set-up . This is a fantastic opportunity for the children to gain a real insight into the world of work.
The project has grown and the children have had several engagements with the organisation:
Sustainability
They have been working with the care home to grow products. This project is in conjunction with another partner Dumbarton Environmental Trust. The project is helping the children to improve their understanding of science but also introducing a wide range of different career options.
Remembrance Day
They joined the care home residents on Remembrance Day and the children made their own poppies to commemorate the occasion. This was another opportunity for the residents to discuss their own lives with our children.
We have other experiences available to our children:
Parental Employability Sessions
We have encouraged our parents to become involved in our employability events and we have had several successful parental QA sessions. This allows the children to experience these skills from some familiar faces.
Fruit Stall
This project has allowed our children to learn employability skills in a real-life context. The children are involved in all aspects of the enterprise activity and have had hands on experience in the following:
Health and hygiene
Money handling
Stock control
They also produce a survey on what products are selling the best and plan their purchases accordingly.
Community Police Visit
The children had a visit from the community police, this was another opportunity to showcase a positive role model . They had a QA session and had the opportunity to ask a wide range of diverse questions.
“The effective incorporation of simple counting, matching and comparison tasks into the conversation encouraged early numeracy skills and the reciprocal question and answers and new vocabulary in context developed early literacy skills for our children in a real and meaningful way. Our childen have been extremely engaged during visits to Quayside with older residents and we have recognised that often adults can underestimate children’s abilities in terms of empathy and awareness. We have had statements from Quayside about increased motivation, interest and engagement by some residents and there really is an observable connection between the regular visitors. Promoting the world of work is allowing our children to access early knowledge of the wide range of different career pathways. We are building on our local partners and will continue to actively promote the positive impact of early introduction to the world of work” Mary Gallacher, Head Teacher
Next Steps
We will continue to work with local partners and strengthen links with the local community.
“We have noticed a surge of energy and increase in physical activity for some of our residents when they know the children will be visiting” Anne from Quayside
