DYW and Skills
At Castlemilk Day Nursery DYW features as an integral part of the learning and teaching alongside literacy, numeracy and health & wellbeing. The Nursery employs a variety of approaches to allow their children to link the skills they are developing to the world of work, challenging gender stereotyping alongside.
Through outdoor learning children at Nursery have opportunity to explore and develop a wide variety of transferable skills across all curriculum areas. Using for example prompt cards and key questions children become aware of key professions and the skills required for these . This is reinforced through our joint up ventures with business and other local nurseries, primary and secondary schools. The Nursery is looking to promote skills for work, life and learning through role-playing , currently they have a focus on the veterinary sector. Children undertake a variety of roles and this helps them to understand the range of different skills that are necessary in the world of work.
Central to embedding DYW across all aspects of learning was the engagement of staff in professional dialogue and partnership working with employers. The Head Teacher and the staff have been working on resources that ensure that the Career Education Standards 3-18 is embedded within the curriculum.
A key priority of the nursery was to support children’s knowledge and understanding of the skills they were learning and relating these to the world of work The skills that the children explored are:
Responsibility/thinking
Teamwork/leadership
Creativity/self confidence
Physical wellbeing
Resilience
These where broken down into achievable “I can” statements for children and linked to the Career Education Standards 3-18. Staff had previously taken part in outdoor training within the local community woods and shared photographs of the learning with the children. The children were encouraged to share the skills that they could identify which included “helping”, “showing” and “talking” and relate these to their daily nursery routine and the wider world of work.. This was a shared learning approach which had positive implications for both staff and children’s learning. The nursery has taken the first steps to building on employee partnerships, developing the young workforce through joined up ventures and sustaining lifelong learning for all. The children really enjoy outdoors and the benefits which it brings. Having a woodland area within our nursery outdoor area we have been able to support and enhance the learning opportunities to support developing the young force through the children’s newly acquired transferable skills.
Staff and children have the opportunity to look at various experiences and outcomes through interdisciplinary learning. Skills for learning, life and work is an integral part of the planning and this ensures these are embedded within the curriculum experiences. Castlemilk has now made contact with wider industries such as house builders, catering agencies, generation programmes and engineering companies who are willing to support in sharing skills with our children
Castlemilk Day Nursery will continue to develop the young workforce approach within their daily practice and within their planning. They will work on joined up ventures with local nurseries, primaries, secondary schools and other education providers sharing skills and knowledge. This will support their children in developing their skills and open up many opportunities to embed DYW within the learning and teaching of the nursery.
Karen Henderson, Head Teacher says: “The initial idea came from linking staff CPD training with our community “Wellie Wanders” group which our children take part in weekly. Staff were also able to link their experiences to the “Outdoor learning” documentation and “My world outdoors” resources which are embedded within Castlemilk Day Nursery”
“I liked climbing on the trees with Ella. I climbed really high. Then climbed down again” Josh, age 4yrs
“I learned to build a den with sticks, leaves and tarpaulin. I like playing in the mud. I like everything outside” Tommy, age 4yrs
