Bathgate Early Years Centre, West Lothian, has always demonstrated a strong supportive ethos for our families, young children and staff. We have aimed to continue this during this uncertain time. One of the essential focuses has been mental wellness; we created this Mental Health Awareness Sway as a reference point for anyone who may need ideas to help regulate emotions and feelings for themselves or children and access helplines or websites for support. This is continually being updated each week.
We communicate regularly with parents/carers through the Online Learning Journal message feature where we provide the opportunity for a chat and suggest try at-home activities to help keep the children busy and active. Staff members regularly film themselves reading their favourite stories to the children ensuring the children are still seeing our familiar faces and hearing our voices. We then document these activities through our Glow blog and Twitter account @WLBEYC.
Our young children have always been co-creators of the learning in our Early Learning and Childcare Setting and during this time it has been no different. Following learning from home we currently have a Planting & Growing Project Sway and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Sway. These are filled with activities set from staff members and also include lots of fantastic input from our families.
Bathgate Early Years Centre was awarded a Digital Schools Award a few years ago now, and our digital journey is constantly adapting and changing. During this time our staff team have really supported one another to adapt to working from home. We discuss and communicate every day using Microsoft teams and have weekly meetings using the video call feature. Digital Technology really has brought us all together and we are continually working together to support every staff member develop their digital thinking and skills.
West Lothian Digital Learning Team are always on hand to support us and regularly share practice using their Twitter account @wldigilearn, and via Yammer and the WL Digi Learn SharePoint.
Email: tayloranne.kelly@westlothian.org.uk
twitter: @Taylor_BEYC
