Curriculum Overview

At West Kilbride Early Years Centre we structure our planning around the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. This is laid out in a series of documents which outline the eight key subject areas of children’s learning.

• Health & Well-being

• Languages & Literacy

• Mathematics & Numeracy

• Expressive Arts

• Sciences

• Social Studies

• Technologies

Planning for each child’s individual need is based on the areas above. Key workers will take into account each child’s prior knowledge, interests and stage of development. We provide additional support for children with particular learning difficulties and liaise with and help parents as best we can. We try to offer a differentiated curriculum which takes into account each child’s individual learning needs. We work closely with visiting support staff, e.g. Speech therapist, occupational therapist, psychologists, etc. We value your continuing support in making it possible for your children to be valued members of our society. This ensures that the planning is very child centred. Key workers would welcome working in partnership with you as Parents/Carers and will fully explain the opportunities for this at your induction.

When your child starts with us their key worker will observe them for 28 days, then create the ‘Childs personal learning plan’. Staff will highlight the areas of learning and we will then issue you with the PLP for you to add what you would like your child to learn. There is a comments box for your child’s interests and if you are using a childminder then their comments can be added too.

Each month a curriculum plan will be emailed to you. The curriculum has to allow room for flexibility as sometimes the child’s own experiences or events dictate a change to the curriculum. Most learning at this stage is done through structured play activities.

Information is gained through observation by key workers and is used to plan next steps in learning for the individual child. Each group works more formally with their key worker for short periods of each week developing specific areas of the curriculum. Observations of development are noted along with photographic evidence and the child’s own work. These are displayed in their own personal e-learning journal which you have 24/7 access to.