We support our children’s holistic development through play within a safe, secure and positive environment. Within Lochfield ELCC we believe all children are individuals and facilitate their needs and interests through their play. At Lochfield, our highly skilled practitioners work alongside children whilst they play observing, supporting and extending the learning. Play is at the heart of what we do. Our approach to learning encourages children to become problem solvers, decision makers and be independent. This enables children to organise and carry out their own play experiences in consultation with adults and other children. Children can only become independent if they are able to make decisions without referring to adults. We provide a child led approach to learning which allows children develop skills through their play which support them in future learning and development. Children need space, time and an enriched environment that encourage play to allow them to flourish and develop with depth.
Our play environment is split into zones which naturally flow into one another and play an equal part in a child’s development. They provide opportunities for indoor and outdoor experiences allowing children the space to further extend their high-quality learning opportunities. Our centre clearly identifies outdoor learning as being equal to indoor learning.
We believe that effective pedagogy involves assessing children’s achievements in ways that are authentic and relevant to children’s interests, for example, to understand a child’s problem-solving skills practitioners should engage with and observe children during play experiences that children have chosen to do by themselves.
Children’s learning is documented in a way that allows them to discuss their learning and know what achievements and successes they have made. Within Lochfield this is done through floorbook documentation and individual learning journals. This documentation belongs to the children and they are encouraged and supported by staff to contribute in a variety of different ways. Using the tracking pathways from the Curriculum for Excellence we track children’s individual learning. The tracking pathways encourage dialogue between children, practitioners and parents to ensure progress, support and challenge across learning and help identify the next learning targets.
