Education
Pre-Birth to Three
‘Pre-Birth to Three: Positive Outcomes for Scotland's Children and Families is a document introduced by the Scottish Office, in association with Learning and Teaching Scotland to provide guidance for all those whose work, involves caring for babies and young children’.
Birth to Three: supporting our youngest children acts as a foundation for a child's future learning and development, taken forward in A Curriculum Framework for 3 to 5, and is based on the same concept that care and learning are inseparable.
The four key principles are:
● Rights of the Child ● Relationships
● Responsive Care ● Respect
Based on these key principles, the guidance proposes sensitive and respectful approaches and ways of interacting that are beneficial to children and families. Nine features have been identified to put the key principles into practice.
The nine features are:
● Role of Staff
● Attachments
● Transitions
● Observation, Assessment and Planning
● Partnership Working
● Health and Wellbeing
● Literacy and Numeracy
● Environments
● Play
All of the key principles and features of practice are interrelated and interdependent.
Realising The Ambition Being Me
Building the Ambition is national practice guidance to support staff in providing high quality Early Learning and Childcare. It provides support for putting theory into practice by offering case studies and reflective questions to provoke discussion and to help support improvement.
RTA explores the range of interactions, experiences and spaces we need to provide for babies and young children to help them learn and grow best from their earliest days through to being a young child in early primary school.
GIRFEC
Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) supports families by making sure children and young people can receive the right help, at the right time, from the right people. The aim is to help them to grow up feeling loved, safe and respected so that they can realise their full potential.
Most children and young people get all the help and support they need from their parent(s), wider family and community but sometimes, perhaps unexpectedly, they may need a bit of extra help.
GIRFEC is a way for families to work in partnership with people who can support them, such as teachers, doctors and nurses.
Actions
We:
● base GIRFEC principles and values on children's rights
● produce national GIRFEC resources for everyone interested in the policy and its
delivery
● promote eight factors that matter when talking about a child or young person’s
● are improving the support for families by providing a clear point of contact - often referred to as a named person - for each child or young person
● will improve how support is planned, delivered and co-ordinated for children who require a range of extra support by making a child’s plan available
● provide resources for practitioners working with children, young people and parents/carers to think about what GIRFEC planning and/or support could help them
● will provide guidance on information sharing, including what can be shared with or by a practitioner acting as a named person or in connection with a child’s plan.
Speech & language support
WKEYC staff are trained in delivering ‘ICAN’ speech & language support.
Communication is the foundation for just about every aspect of a Childs development. Helping build good speech and language skills is one of the most important things we can do as early years practitioners.
Communication is important, being able to listen, understand and talk meaningfully is recognised as the foundation skill for life.
Children need the skills to:
Make friends
Learn
Let people know what they want
Know how to behave
Make the most of their lives.
We do know that early identification is vital for supporting children’s language and speech, language and communication skills are vital for all children. Without the skills they will not reach their full potential.
If we have concerns about a child speech, language or communication, we would use the ICAN progress checker, and talk to the parents or carers to decide how we can best support the child to develop their communication skills. We will use the ICAN packs in the nursery class and use strategies to support children with language and communication.
PATHS
We would like to give you some information about the PATHS program. Staff members in each class will plan and implement the lessons with the children. PATHS stands for: promoting alternative thinking strategies.
The aim is that PATHS lessons will help build the competencies of the children by providing systematic instruction and activities. The PATHS program will help the children learn about themselves and others whilst having fun. The main goal is to lay foundation for lifelong social emotional understanding. PATHS activities will be used regularly throughout the year and will cover a number of topics. We will start our year reviewing the rules of the classroom. Children learn to follow many rules in preschool. The rules are for snack time, free playtime and circle time. Circle time is a short group learning period that takes place every week. During circle time, we do PATHS activities and we use props such as puppets called Twiggle and Henrietta. At first, circle time is difficult for children because they are asked to sit still and listen to their key worker.
Providing rules helps children to feel more secure because they let the children know what is expected of them. When we give them rules it is important to explain the reason for rules. This way the children will understand why those behaviours are important (for example, safety or getting along with others). We will encourage your child to talk about PATHS activities with you at home, and we will keep you updated through the planning and we progress with PATHS. Please let your Childs key worker know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.
