3 and 4 December 2025, 9am until 4:30pm

What does it do?

Seasons for Growth aims to strengthen the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people (aged 6-18) who are dealing with significant life changes by:

• Exploring the impact of the change and loss on everyday life
• Learning new ways to respond to these changes

 

Who is it for?
Anyone who is living with the effects of change and loss. Many factors can cause change such as:

• Friends can come and go
• Loss of someone or something you love
• Parents and families separate
• Moving to a new place
• Impact of illness
• Family work-life changes

Change affects everyone differently, as does grief. It’s the impact of the change, not the event itself that Seasons for Growth focuses on.

Please book via Business World

27 November 2025, 9am until 5pm

Business Suite, Council Headquarters, Newtown St Boswells

 

CPI’s Breaking Up Fights™: Intervention Skills Training provides staff with the
skills to prevent fights, assess risk, and respond with appropriate interventions.
The programme, led by one of CPI’s experienced trainers, takes 3 hours to
complete and is split into two parts:

• Part 1 covers the theory element of how staff can best prepare themselves
  before, during, and after a fight incident. This section will remove ambiguity
  around staff responsibilities, improve risk assessment and decision-making
  to reduce repercussions, and upskill staff with evidence-based preventative
  methods.
• Part 2 contains the programme’s physical skills. Staff will learn the key
  principles of physical intervention and the six essential skills to maximise
  safety and minimise harm to all involved.

After successful completion of the programme, learners are certified to practise
skills for 2 years.

Facilitation Methods
This interactive programme is taught by one of CPI’s experienced trainers entirely
in-classroom/face-to-face and can be delivered on your school premises. The
programme takes 3 hours to complete, so it can be delivered during a twilight
training session. Alternatively, two programmes can be delivered back-to-back
(morning and afternoon) to two groups of participants during an INSET.
For the theory element of the course (Part 1), access to a large screen or projector
is essential. For the physical skills section, we recommend ample space and floor
mats for each sub-group.
Training can be delivered in groups of up to 24 participants. Participants will
be split into smaller sub-groups of 4 when learning the programme’s physical skills (Part 2).

 

Programme
Objectives
• Apply best practice in recognising, preventing, and responding to fights.
• Professionalise decision making process ‘in the moment’ before and during a fight.
• Identify key techniques to aid composure and build resilience.
• Demonstrate safe intervention skills to minimise harm to all involved.

 

Bookings can be made through Business World.

 

 Is your school keen to provide more coding opportunities? Do you need help determining where to begin or taking those initial steps?

Code Club are excited to invite you and your school to participate in our free 5-week ‘Learn to code with Code Club’ programme. Run by the Code Club team, the programme helps educators develop the confidence to independently run coding sessions, and provides learners with the skills and knowledge to use code to bring their ideas to life.

Click here to sign up

 

The programme will begin with a training session on either 21 or 28 October, followed by an hour-long session each Tuesday for the four subsequent weeks. All sessions will be hosted by Rebecca Gracher, Sarah Roberts, and Rujeko Moyo from Code Club:

• A one-hour online teacher training workshop (choose between 21 and 28 October to suit your availability)
• Four one-hour online coding sessions for learners, (choose between 11am and 1pm to suit your availability)
• A one-hour sharing session for teachers that provides a space for you to review your learning with other community members, ask questions, and plan your next steps

For more details about the programme, please check our website.

Sign up to reserve your place

The programme is aimed at schools looking to run a Code Club. Please note that only one Code Club can be registered per school, although multiple educators from the same school can participate.

All participating schools must register a Code Club before the start of the programme — we’ll send you further information on how to do this after you’ve signed up. Like all other aspects of the programme, registering a Code Club is completely free.

Click here to sign up

Thank you for your interest — I look forward to meeting you!

 

 

Course Content – A deep dive into the Magma Maths platform to showcase advanced features such as pacing, skills and practice mode.

 

Course Aims:

1. Feel confident using Magma beyond the basics, applying advanced features in ways that save time and improve lessons.
2. Use Magma insights to target support more precisely.

 

Target Audience – Maths Teachers

 

Course will be held online

Options:

22 October 2025 – 3:30pm – 4:15pm

23 October 2025 – 3:30pm – 4:15pm

This course will outline the national context of anti-racism in Scotland, reflecting on the importance of this work and building staff confidence around language and using the Mirrors and Windows framework in their classrooms and settings. Staff will explore the anti-racist education resource with opportunities to engage in activities they can use in their practise- interactions, experiences and spaces.

This course will be delivered in 2 sessions – a main interactive, informative session, followed by a reflection and next step development session.

Course Aims:

• To build confidence in all staff working at Early Level in their anti-racist practice.
• To explore Scotland’s anti-racist education resource to support Early Level educators and settings.

31 October 2025 – 2pm – 3:30pm

5 December 2025 – 2pm – 3:30pm

Venue – Inspire Academy, Tweedbank

A series of six one hour-long collaborative sessions where we will come together to reflect on the joys and unique challenges of working with ELC 2s. Each session will include a short learning input from the Early Years Teacher Team followed by professional discussion and reflection; come prepared to share!

At the end of each session, you will be given the opportunity to develop an area of your practice based on the content of the session in a way that’s meaningful for your setting and children.

Participants will:

• Enhance your understanding of early child development to support your ELC 2s in practice
• Explore the essential documents that all ELC2 practitioners need to know about, including UNCRC
• Develop your understanding of tuning into and working with schematic play
• Introducing the Froebelian concept of slow pedagogy and how this could work with ELC 2
• Explore a variety of ways to plan with and for your ELC 2s
• Use technology to share your practice and take time to reflect on the impact that your learning in the last five sessions has had on experiences and outcomes for your ELC2’s

 

Course Aims – To ensure that our ELC 2s are supported to thrive through developmentally appropriate practice.   We will support practitioners in this by providing key messages around early child development, schematic play, slow pedagogy, essential documentation and planning with and for ELC 2s.

The CoP also provides a space for developing self-reflection, peer conversations and sharing of best practice.

 

Target Audience – Anyone working with ELC 2s, including Managers and EYOs in settings with ELC 2s.

All sessions are 5-6pm on the following dates:

• 4/11/25
• 18/11/25
• 9/12/25
• 13/1/26
• 27/1/26
• 3/3/26

This course is aimed at settings wishing to develop their understanding of how to capture learning and observations in a variety of ways (including digital, using a platform such as Showbie) and how these can be used for assessment to support children to make progress in their learning across the curriculum.   Where possible, it would be beneficial for as many of your team as possible to attend. This should include an SEYO or EYO. This is to enable teams to discuss and develop a shared approach through the course. If the location of your setting makes it challenging to attend this session in-person, please get in touch with the tutor to discuss the possibility of joining remotely as a team .

The course will comprise three compulsory sessions across the year. These will take place in-person at Council Headquarters. There will also be two optional online drop-in sessions for additional support if required.

• Session 1 will consider why and how we capture learning & high quality observations and the variety of ways in which we can document this involving children and parents.
• Session 2 will delve into understanding why systems must be in place to analyse and interpret our documentation to progress individual children’s learning across the curriculum.  We will discuss and share what this can look like in practice.
• Session 3 will require practitioners from settings to share their progress across the year and the impact this has had on children. Practitioners will have the opportunity to share their journey with another setting in the Borders.

In order to experience impact from these sessions, participants are required to;

• share current observations and systems

• participate in the sessions and to implement a change after each session (to both observations, and then systems)

• share the changes they implemented and the impact the change has had on their interpretation of children’s progress.

 

Practitioners will:

• Gain clarity on a variety of documentation types which evidence a child’s holistic development.

• Establish systems to put in place as a team to ensure that documentation is purposeful & supports progress & effective assessment.

• Share practice with other settings and quality assure their documentation against key messages.

• Work as a team to establish a robust framework that sets out their own setting’s types of documentation & systems around these.

 

Target Audience – SEYO or EYO. For this training to have the most impact, it would be beneficial for as many of your team as possible to attend.

Friday 24/10/25 – 2-4pm HQ business suite

Wed 3/12/25 – 4-5pm Online Teams (optional drop-in)

Wed 28/1/26 – 4-5:30pm HQ business suite

Wed 25/3/26 – 4-5pm Online Teams (optional drop-in)

Wed 27/5/26 – 4-5:30pm HQ business suite

A series of 4 core (mandatory) CLPL sessions (1 hour each presented virtually) and an expectation participants will engage in a minimum of three hours implementing learning in practice.     Optional drop-in sessions to support practitioners will be arranged.

14/11/2025 – Inspirational Environments Session 1 1hr live presentation- Practical implementation- Core and Continuous Provision Audit Introductory session to Core and Continuous Provision across the indoor spaces supporting holistic development and learning (incorporating CfE capacities & meta skills)

30/01/2026 – Innovative Practitioners Session 2 1hr live presentation- Practical implementation- Observation of children’s use of core and continuous provision (Feedback from practitioners’ implementation of core and continuous provision audit) Focus on Loose parts including block play

20/03/2026 – Creativity and Curiosity Session 3 1hr live presentation- Practical implementation-improved core and continuous provision  (Feedback from practitioners’ observation of core and continuous provision)  Focus on Expressive arts play including role-play

01/05/2026 – Impact Session 4 1hr live presentation  Stimulating indoor spaces where children explore, experiment, and develop curiosity and creativity have been improved throughout the setting. Children are highly confident and engaged in the available spaces that meet their changing developmental needs.

 

Course aims:

Individuals will be able to implement changes to create stimulating indoor spaces which enable children to explore, experiment, and develop curiosity and creativity throughout the setting.

Individuals will be able to demonstrate that children are highly confident and engaged in spaces to meet their changing developmental needs.

 

Target Audience – All Early Learning and Childcare setting practitioners

14/11/2025 – 2-3pm

30/01/2026 – 2-3pm

20/03/2026 – 2-3pm

01/05/2026 – 2-3PM

 

Click the link to find out about our Education team 2025/26 professional learning offer.

We offer sessions either F2F or online for Primary Clusters regarding the following themes:

We also offer virtual sessions that individuals can register for using the links below:

23/9/25 – Introduction to meta-skills

8/10/25 – Meta-skills in Practice: Sharing approaches from primary schools 

12/11/25 – Introduction to career education

4/12/25 – Meta-skills in Practice: Sharing approaches from ASN settings

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss this offer in more detail.

Amber

Amber.beatson@sds.co.uk