Early Years News

Nice article about Cathkin Community Nursery.

Had great time at Glenburgh Nursery today. One of the EY workers who I used to teach (how old does that make me…) is about to set up a blog for the children to do emergent writing on. Another thank you to Ollie Bray who has inspired all sorts since his talk the other week here! Lots of nice things going on in Glenburgh. It was a hive of activity today with their individual achievement booklets getting put together for the new starts – lots of nice links within these showing movement in their CfE implementation. Its always great to visit Glenburgh.

Yesterday I had a really good time meeting with secondees who are working on assessment for SLC. They were so up for the challenge, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Interesting talk with HT at Bankhead PS the other day, they are always innovative and this year are revamping their dialogue meetings re forward planning – they are calling this process their triangulation meetings. It sounded like real reflection and a focus on ,improvement was already happening through this process. They also showed me their new things in their grounds, from handmade places who had made them the most beautiful, sturdy outdoor play things. They were rightly proud of what they had in place, made me wish I was little and running about their playground.

More on Excellence

The recent Care Commission Report on Cathkin Community Nursery confirmed what we already knew – its an excellent establishment. But what are the key aspects about the establishment that make it so good? It would be difficult and not sensible to replicate what they do elsewhere as each establishment is set in a unique context, with its own uniques set of children, parents and staff but there are things which we can all learn from what takes place in Cathkin Community.

The leadership of the nursery is exceptional – improvement planning and talking about improvement is a way of being at Cathkin Comm Nursery. This striving for excellence,  for innovation, for better ways of doing things is evident as soon as you go in the door – the Nursery has an abundance of awards from a COSLA silver award, to SLC awards to certificates of staff CPD and children and parent achievement on display as soon as you go in and this sets the tone for everything else. The less formal achievement tree has little messages which are added to daily from stories from Mums about new babies, to wee ones who have leared something new at nursery or home to messages about how proud they are to have had a visitor. Everything is noticed, celebrated and the attention to this kind of small detail is very important.

As you walk through the nursery the wall displays have a tone which has evolved over time – there’s a balance between published and children’s work but work which is displayed is linked to CfE principles and outcomes for instance if there’s a display with photos of playing outdoors – it won’t say that John was splashing in the puddles but that John was splashing in the puddles and he was exploring and appreciating the wonder of nature – everything is about learning. There are colour coded displays  for each of the four capacities with photos/evidence to link to these. Floorbooks are displayed for the children and adults to look at with ones for different curricular areas, focus topics etc etc. Planning is up on the walls with tips for the week related to learning and teaching. Children’s learning stories/portfolios are accessed by the children all the time so they can update them/read them and staff have a purposeful well planned way of doing assessments, running records etc. But none of this ever stays still for instance the learning stories are now being made into multi media resources.

All staff have leaderhip roles of their own and most are involved in additional study such as PDAs BAs etc in their own time. Any innovative practices carried out have presentations written about them which other establishments can ask to see and use with their own staff.

Visitors pop in and out and are welcomed at any time, doors are opened and you can have a good old nose to find good practice and this is openly encouraged!

Self evaluation is circular and real. For instance questionnaires last session showed parents would like more courses etc, so the nursery applied for funding, got about £9000 and set up courses with a local college. I’m just off to see a fashion show shortly which parents are putting on after they’ve spent 10 weeks looking at their self esteem, how they present themselves/look after their health etc.

Volunteers are welcomed, community links are fostered with everyone you meet knowing something about the nursery or having some involvement in visiting.

Their vision and values are clear and embedded. They use the word ENABLE and their vision is linked to the word in a sort of acrostix. Then their aims are divided into parents, children, staff, community and management. These are then linked to the improvement plan.

They are making a real difference to the lives of the children and adults involved in their community, and those differences and little impacts are often immeasurable. Liz and her team will never know all the differences they have made or the impact they have had on our future’s children

All Sixes!!!

Cathkin Community Nursery where I visit is an inspirational place, their recent Care Commission report was graded at 6 all the way through. The first one we’ve had so far in South Lanarkshire. Well done Liz Mercer and team. This is well deserved and a great tribute to their ongoing work.

Calderwood

I was at a “secret” show the other day at Calderwood Primary. The staff, pupils and friends had managed to keep quiet a little show they had developed to pay tribute to their HT Ann Kerr who retires today after being Head at Calderwood for 28 years. They sneaked into the hall with a big audience whilst Ann was waylaid elsewhere. This is your life tributes provided by her sister were fab. The children sang their hearts out and the staff got themselves together as a Queen tribute choir for the event with a treat being the Janny “Eddie” Mercury. Fantastic. A few tears were shed and it was clear just how many lives Ann has touched over the years. She’ll be sorely missed but I know she is really looking forward to the next phase in her life.

Cathkin Community Nursery were involved in some filming yesterday for the EY DVD being produced by LTS to assist with CfE. They do some wonderful work there, so I’m sure they would have provided useful material to LTS.

JTE in action

There are some days it just hits me between the eyes that I’ve got the best job in the world. Today was a hard one getting up, Wednesday, feeling kind of sleepy mid week and then I get to work and I see why I come to work every day. I was doing a PDR today in a nursery and didn’t expect either of the sniffly, happy, weepy moments that hit me. Cathkin Community Nursery showed me their ongoing planning whiteboard where they are reviewing their vision, values and aims. Using the word ENABLE to write their vision they are then colour coding the related CfE links and the aims (written as outcomes) which they are developing ready to work out actions to put in their improvement plan. They also told me about the 200 places parents in the area have applied for with their awards for all grant for parental courses at SLC college. On the playroom walls they are colour coding photograph backgrounds with a specific colour for CfE principles. They had rewritten the AIFL triangle for their own establishment so all staff felt ownership of what they were doing. Then in pops Rachel with her individualised learning story media show – with all the photos and evidence for one child showing their learning progression. WOW! I could write much more but go see it! Then off for a surprise treat at Trinity High, where they are currently in the midst of a cross curricular week with all departments involved. The theme is The Scottish Nation. Starting with an assembly on the Monday, pupils made choice to study within curricular areas, went off with a fabulous quiz to complete over the week, where they were getting input in departments but also having to do study research in their own time. They also have to complete ongoing research material as the topic is worked through. The planning and thought going into this was wonderful. What was coming out straight away was the additional element of engagement and enjoyment which was being tackled in looking at the curriculum in this way. They too are delving deep into their vision and values. One impressive piece of work is how they are evaluating the school using the charter for catholic schools. The evaluation looks at the distinctive features in Trinity High and signposts areas for further development. For anyone in any school whether denominational or non-denominational this piece of work is a great example of excellent practice in self evaluation. And what comes across in both establishments is the commitment of the staff, the joy of improving things for the young people and the understanding of how much of a difference they can make in the life of these youngsters – sparking that golden nugget in them of lifelong learning. The other thing which is clear in both is the desire to build capacity in all those involved within their school – the good school in the good society. And the best thing about my job? I get to see stuff like this every day!

Ministerial visit

Cathkin Community Nursery hosted a visit by Fiona Hyslop on Friday. They were celebrating St Andrew’s day witha variety of music, food, and activities. It involved children presenting a lovely framed print they had made to Fiona, a piper, singing and dancing. Liz the Head was delighted that the nursery was visited as it was a great boost for the children, the staff and the parents. As the Fiona Hyslop said “This visit made me proud to be Scottish but Scotland should be proud of all of you at Cathkin Community Nursery”. Liz was impressed to see the minister getting down and about things with the children and everyone had a great morning.

Just prior to the visit I’d popped in to say hello to Liz. As  I was leaving a parent said “It was nice to meet you Fiona”. For one scary moment I was sorely tempted in my new guise as Fiona Hyslop to announce a large injection of cash to education…… Ah the power…. But instead I just admitted I wisnae her.

Persona Dolls

As always Cathkin Community Nursery in the Rutherglen/Cambuslang Area are doing just great. This is an article in Early Years Matters about how they use persona dolls

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyearsmatters/confidentlearners/personadolls.asp

 

Privileged

Being a Head is a huge privilege and often we don’t shout that out loud enough. Moving into my QIO post I’m realising what a privilege this is too. To be able to visit establishments on a daily basis and look at what is going on in them is wonderful. I visited Cathkin Community Nursery today. I stayed for a good while and saw some exciting and innovative evidence of ongoing work.

 

 

They have a sensory garden which the children designed and planned using mindmaps/floorbooks. Responsive Planning, pupil choice, real confidence in action!

 Loved the good news tree, which grows bigger throughout the session – different types of good news – little people who might have managed to sleep in their own bed the whole night, maybe they’ve got a new brother or sister. Huge opportunities for self expression, talking and listening, psd etc etc

They had done huge amounts of work on diversity with their persona dolls.

Bronze, silver and gold health promotion awards have been achieved.

 Innovative planning methods- really listening to the children – for instance someone found a spider – a huge focus of work then followed covering every curricular area you could imagine, all child led.

Christopher told me all about his record of achievement, explaining how much his drawing had improved over the years from when he was a baby and next he goes to school in August.

It would need a visit to take it all in rather than me giving highlights in shorthand! Liz Mercer the Head of the establishment her Depute and staff are inspiring and have a very welcoming ethos and love to share their ideas.

Sometimes in my previous school I would be taken by surprise by something which made me cry with the joy of it. Last year’s most memorable greet was when Zac in P1 came round with a grin from ear to ear and said “Mrs Reid I can read!” A whole new world had just opened up to him overnight and he’d suddenly cracked the code. He wanted to read everything he could see and find.

Today it was the amount of work parents had been doing alongside the nursery which caught me unawares. I managed to stop myself from blubbing, but the chin was wobbling and my eyes watering – in their persona dolls room there were paintings done by a parent related to equality called “its a small world after all”. Then in the toilets which could have been dull and dismal a parent must have spent hours painting bright pictures. I’ve seen lots of murals like these before, but there was just something about what these parents had put into the work of themselves which I found very touching.