Standards and Quality Report 2017-18

School Name: Cathkin Community Nursery

Context of the Early Learning and Childcare Establishment :

Cathkin Community Nursery is in Cambuslang and is part of the shared campus with both Cathkin and Rutherglen high schools. We have capacity for 6 (FTE) babies, 10 (FTE toddlers) and 56 (FTE) 3-5 year old children housed in three welcoming, bright and curriculum rich playrooms. Our outdoor spaces are open, well planned, motivational, rich in learning experiences and fun. We have recently created a nurture room within the centre to help support our children in developing their emotional wellbeing and sense of belonging. The nursery is set within an

affluent area, however, there are areas within it where there are levels of deprivation which are listed within the top 20% of the most deprived areas in Scotland. (SIMD, 2016). We are a staff team consisting of Head, Depute (job share), one Nursery Teacher and ten FTE Early Years Workers. This year we have 3 support staff that work various hours across the week. The nursery has gone through a few staffing changes over the last year including the appointment of a new Head of Establishment in January 18. We have also had 2 new Early Years Workers join our team and all staff have demonstrated great professionalism in coping with the changes.

Our nursery vision is ‘We are all a part of the Cathkin Community Nursery family’. Our establishment’s visions, values and aims supports us to nurture children, promote their all-round development and learning, support our families in their community and be a strong team who delivers a consistently high service with our partners.

We have a very strong partnership with agencies and have a very good reputation for supporting children and families in the joint work that we do. We have extremely positive relationships with parents and carers who actively engage with us and are regularly informed and consulted in the work that we do. We have embedded family learning within our centre and promote parents in engaging their children in learning at home.

We have very strong links with both high schools and have regular programmes and joint initiatives with the nursery children and the young people in the schools and also support many youngsters in their pursuit of their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. We are an ECO friendly school and have now achieved our third green flag.

Review of SIP progress session ___2017/18_________________

Priority 1: To ensure a high quality early learning and childcare pedagogical approach in the development of young children’s early language and literacy skills.

National Improvement Framework Key Priorities Improvement in attainment, particularly in

literacy and numeracy; Closing the attainment gap between the most

and least disadvantaged children; Improvement in children and young people’s

health and wellbeing; and Improvement in employability skills and

sustained positive school leaver destinations for all young people.

National Improvement Framework Key Drivers

School leadership

Teacher professionalism

Parental engagement

Assessment of children’s progress

School improvement

Performance information

HGIOELC QI: 1.1 Self Evaluation for self-improvement 1.3 Leadership of change 2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning teaching and assessment 2.5 Family learning 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion 3.2 Securing children’s progress 3.3 Developing creativity and skills for life and learning

Progress and Impact: We have adopted a new planning format which puts clearer focus on literacy outcomes and

encompasses the 7 curriculum principles. Our planning structure has been adapted to include the benchmarks and staff have been supported

to develop their understanding of these. Children are making very good progress in literacy. Staff report a raised awareness of recording significant observations to support children’s progress in

learning. A children’s literacy committee has been established by our literacy coordinator and this has

enhanced children’s engagement in literacy both indoors and out. 66% of our 0-3 children have engaged in literacy based monthly challenges which encourage

families at home to carry out a task linked to the learning within nursery. Evidence gathered demonstrates the engagement in enhanced literacy experiences within the home.

All of our children aged 3-5 engage in our nursery rhyme of the month within our music programme, providing enhanced opportunities to play with words, sound, rhythm and syllables.

A literacy workshop was delivered by the Depute head to increase parent’s knowledge on language

literacy development and parent’s role in supporting this at home. There was a 12% uptake from parents.

All pre-school children received a transition pack in April devised by the nursery teacher. This has a clear focus on literacy and numeracy skills that the parent and child can work on at home. All parents who provided feedback expressed very positive views on the packs highlighting that they have been hugely successful, popular with children, well thought out, well-resourced and promoted family engagement.

We have 2 staff members who are highly skilled in the use of Makaton and use it readily throughout the session to support our children who use this form of communication.

Next Steps: We will progress to online learning journals for children to enhance the way we record, track and

monitor children’s progress in literacy. We will review our consultation methods with parents in a bid to receive more regular feedback from

parents with regards to our promotion of literacy within the setting. We will enhance our home link literacy packs to provide more frequent access to the packs for all

children

Priority 2:To ensure a high quality early learning and childcare pedagogical approach in the development of young children’s early numerical and mathematical a skills.

National Improvement Framework Key Priorities Improvement in attainment, particularly in

literacy and numeracy; Closing the attainment gap between the most

and least disadvantaged children; Improvement in children and young people’s

health and wellbeing; and Improvement in employability skills and

sustained positive school leaver destinations for all young people.

National Improvement Framework Key Drivers

School leadership

Teacher professionalism

Parental engagement

Assessment of children’s progress

School improvement

Performance information

HGIOELC QI: 1.1 Self Evaluation for self-improvement 1.3 Leadership of change 2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning teaching and assessment 2.5 Family learning 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion 3.2 Securing children’s progress 3.3 Developing creativity and skills for life and learning

Progress and Impact: Children demonstrate skills in rote counting, matching and sorting and the use of mathematical

language. We are piloting new online tracking to assist us in gathering more accurate data in these areas.

We have adopted a new planning format which puts clearer focus on numeracy outcomes and encompasses the 7 curriculum principles.

Our planning structure has been adapted to include the benchmarks and staff have been supported to develop their understanding of these.

Children are making good progress in numeracy. Staff report a raised awareness of recording significant observations to support children’s progress in

learning. A children’s numeracy committee has been established by our numeracy coordinator and this has

enhanced children’s engagement in numeracy both indoors and out. All of children in their preschool year have accessed numeracy home link bags to enhance their

numeracy opportunities at home. Evidence gathered from the numeracy bags demonstrates that all children and families engaged in the numeracy experiences provided.

The majority of our children aged 3-5 have taken part in our tasty Tuesday baking experiences. This has enhanced children’s opportunities to experiment with units of measure as they weigh ingredients and use language such as more, less, heavy, light, full, empty.

All of our children aged 3-5 have engaged in our nurseries physical connections programme. This has provided challenges for children to develop their awareness of position and direction as they become familiar with forward, backwards, in front, behind, above, below, left, right. They also develop their concept of time as they discuss speed – faster, slower, etc.

All pre-school children receive a transition pack in April devised by the nursery teacher. This has a clear focus on literacy and numeracy skills that the parent and child can work on at home prior to starting school. All parents who provided feedback expressed very positive views on the packs highlighting that they have been hugely successful, popular with children, well thought out, well-resourced and promoted family engagement.

Next Steps: We will act on suggestions from parents on creating a numeracy based monthly challenge for family

learning. We will enhance our home link numeracy packs to provide more frequent access to the packs for all

children We will progress to online learning journals for children to enhance the way we record, track and

monitor children’s progress in numeracy. We will review our consultation methods with parents in a bid to receive more regular feedback from

parents with regards to our promotion of numeracy within the setting.

Priority 3:To ensure all children develop their knowledge, understanding, skills, capabilities and the

attributes which they need for mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing now and in the future.

National Improvement Framework Key Priorities Improvement in attainment, particularly in

literacy and numeracy; Closing the attainment gap between the most

and least disadvantaged children; Improvement in children and young people’s

health and wellbeing; and Improvement in employability skills and

sustained positive school leaver destinations for all young people.

National Improvement Framework Key Drivers

School leadership

Teacher professionalism

Parental engagement

Assessment of children’s progress

School improvement

Performance information

HGIOELC QI: 1.1 Self Evaluation for self-improvement 1.3 Leadership of change 2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning teaching and assessment 2.5 Family learning 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion 3.2 Securing children’s progress 3.3 Developing creativity and skills for life and learning

Progress and Impact: We have reviewed the structure of our day and the playroom routines within it to ensure that our

children engage in high quality experiences that promotes independence and choice 100% of children aged 3-5 are part of ‘My S.E.L.F and others emotional literacy programme (SLC

Emotional Literacy Framework). Evidence suggests that a few children have a raised ability to understand their emotions and how to express them appropriately.

Almost all of our 3-5 children participate the South Lanarkshire’s Physical Connections Programme each week. This provides increased opportunities for children to move with a purpose, explore their awareness of personal space and learn about direction and speed through energetic play.

100% of our pre-school children engage in our ‘Be Safe’ programme. This has been highly successful in empowering children to discuss what is scary or worrying and who they can talk to if they are feeling this way.

The Health and Wellbeing coordinator has now established a children’s committee to support the development of H&W both indoors and out. As a result, children develop a sense of inclusion, value and sense of belonging among their peer group.

Children and families are encouraged to celebrate their successes and achievements both at home and in nursery. This information is displayed on the ‘Good News’ tree, giving children/families and sense of pride and achievement as their efforts are recognised and celebrated within the establishment.

We have a highly successful and thorough transition programme in place for our children who are moving between rooms. Observations from staff show that children are well prepared and ready to progress following a successful and well supported transition process.

We continue to strive to include all our feeder schools in transition events which includes children from P6 who will be buddies for our children in August. This supports children’s emotional wellbeing and sense of security and familiarity during those early days at school.

All children with ASN are discussed at our locality’s Joint Assessment Team (JAT) Meetings. This ensures the feeder schools are well informed of the supports required to enable our children to

continue to make good progress in their learning. The nursery has developed a strong sense of community through establishing excellent links with

both Rutherglen and Cathkin High School. We have begun regular visits to our local care home for the elderly. The children and residents have

developed special relationships and created a culture of respect. Our care home visits have brought about positive changes to some of the youngest and eldest members of our Cathkin Community.

We have highly effective relationships with supporting agencies to ensure a holistic approach to our children’s learning

Children have a clearer understanding of how to keep their body and minds healthy through engaging in the ‘Healthy Children’ initiative.

Children had increased opportunities for physical exercise while developing confidence and self-esteem through engaging in the Tiger Cubs programme.

We promote opportunities to utilize our family’s skills base and increase family engagement within the centre. This year we have had a mum who is Spanish, read a story in her home dialect and a grandfather teach our children some basic skills in golf.

We have a strong emphasis on supporting several charities to develop a sense of nurture, belonging, inclusion, care and respect among all our children and staff. We have participated in a Wellie Walk for Yorkhill Hospital, Jeans for Genes for Downs Syndrome Scotland, McMillan Coffee Morning for Cancer Research and a Pyjama day for Sports Relief.

Next Steps: We will further enhance our links with the Care home for the elderly and provide opportunities for

residents to come visit the nursery during special events. We will review the My S.E.L.F programme to promote further family engagement. We will progress to online learning journals for children to enhance the way we record, track and

monitor children’s progress in Health and Wellbeing.

Achieving Excellence: Overall Progress towards National Improvement Framework PrioritiesSession 2017-18Use all available evidence (including data)Literacy:

Progress satisfactory good very good excellent √

StrengthsChildren across our setting access a vast range of literacy experiences and have a high level of support from all staff to ensure they are making progress in this area.

A few of our children have limited verbal communication and receive excellent support from 2 members of staff who are highly skilled in the use of Makaton.

The staff demonstrate commitment to enhancing their knowledge of the curriculum benchmarks to ensure that we have clarity of the national standard expected within literacy.

Staff have a heightened awareness of recording significant learning and the impact this has in tracking children’s progress in learning

An area of strength lies within children’s knowledge of books and book handling skills with a strong interest demonstrated in early mark making.

Next stepsFully implement online learning journals to enhance the quality of recording children’s learning, increase the opportunities to share learning between home and nursery and provide robust tracking of children’s progress in literacy.

Numeracy:Progress satisfactory good very good excellent

√StrengthsChildren demonstrate particular strengths with rote counting and have developed a good understanding of positional language of numbers that come before and after.

Almost all children can confidently rote count to 20 and most are able to understand the value of numbers up to 10.

Children have developed a sound knowledge of weight and measurement through the Tasty Tuesday programme. This is promoted further through our ‘Eat Better, Feel Better’ parents course which encourages parents to develop numeracy skill in their children through baking/cooking experiences within the home.

Our home link numeracy packs have been very successful and all of the children who have had the packs home have provided evidence of family engagement in mathematics through the pack resources.

Next stepsFully implement online learning journals to enhance the quality of recording children’s learning, increase the opportunities to share learning between home and nursery and provide robust tracking of children’s progress in Numeracy.

Health and WellbeingProgress satisfactory good very good excellent

√StrengthsWithin our setting we have established a strong sense of community with values which firmly reflect children’s well-being. Excellent links with local high schools, our visits to the elderly care home and programmes such as forest adventures promotes relationship building and mutual respect among the community.

All children benefit from free access to a high quality, stimulating, outdoor learning environment.

The children have developed a sound knowledge of where living things come from and how they grow and develop as they play a key role in maintaining the plants, flowers and trees within the garden.

We promote a strong sense of belonging as all children aged 3-5 are involved in one of our children’s committees and are responsible for promoting learning and developments in this key area.

A vast range of programmes that promote physical activity in children such as physical connections, Tiger Cubs and Healthy children have been accessed by all children aged 3-5.

Children have been well supported in their development of emotional literacy through SLC emotional literacy framework - My S.E.L.F and others.

The promotion of the ‘Be Safe’ programme has empowered children to talk about what is safe and unsafe, what makes them experience a range of emotions and strategies to deal with these.

The use of our good news tree encourages children and families to celebrate their achievements and successes from home and within nursery.

A robust transition programme is embedded to ensure children are well supported across all age groups when progressing onto the next stage group within the establishment. We continue to strive to maintain vital links with our feeder primary schools, ensuring the best possible start for our children moving onto primary 1.

Next steps

We are devising strategies to introduce children and our families to the SHANARRI indicators as part of our GIRFEC approach and raise their awareness of children’s rights.

Fully implement online learning journals to enhance the quality of recording children’s learning, increase the opportunities to share learning between home and nursery and provide robust tracking of children’s progress in Health and Wellbeing.

Employability Skills/Positive Destinationssatisfactory

good very good excellent

√StrengthsThe nursery has achieved our 3rd Eco flag. Our children’s eco committee is well established with the children having a clear role on what they can do to help keep our environment eco-friendly.

Our regular visits to the elderly care home and library bookbug sessions engages our children in the wider community.

We support the development of a young workforce through joint links with both Cathkin and Rutherglen high school. We provide a range of work experiences for many of their students including 10 pupils who completed their Duke of Edinburgh award with us.

Our internal and external transition programmes are well planned and children are well supported across all stages of transition.

Next stepsWe will extend our links with the elderly care home through involving them within the life of the centre.

We will make full use of our newly developed nurture room to engage children in the ‘Bucket Filler’ programme to promote children’s use of kind word and compliments and how these make us feel.

We will continue to work towards our forth Eco flag

Overall quality of our learners’ achievements Highlights of session 2017-18Within session 2017/18, Cathkin Community Nursery has provided a children and families with a wide range of high quality experiences to enhance their skills across the 3 priority areas of Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing.

This year we begun weekly visits to the local library with our children aged 0-3. During this time, we participate in the library’s bookbug sessions, providing children with enriched language experiences through stories, songs and rhymes. The majority of our children have now accessed this programme with a view to continue these visits into the new session.

We have had a high level of engagement from our under 3’s parents in response to our monthly challenge. Most parents have provided evidence of engaging their child at home in learning suggested each month by the nursery staff. The suggested learning is linked to what the children are engaging in at nursery, therefore reinforcing and enhancing their learning through family engagement.

Our 3-5 children have recently participated in visits to our local elderly care home. Children have embraced these visits, bringing joy and happiness to many of the residents as they playing games and singing songs together. They have demonstrated care and kindness

towards each other, developed special relationships and created a culture of respect. Our care home visits have brought about positive changes to some of the youngest and eldest members of our Cathkin Community.

To support children’s understanding of growth and change and develop their knowledge of how to care for living things, we participated in the ‘living eggs programme’. Children and parents were fascinated to see our tiny chicks hatch from their eggs and watch them as they grew and developed into strong and active little chicks. Children had the responsibility to feed, water and clean the chicks

each day as well as track their growth and change. Feedback from parents stated that that their children were extremely excited to share their knowledge of the chicks at home with one parents explaining that her son has never been so excited to get to nursery in the morning.

To develop children’s numeracy skills through real life experiences, we have introduced our ‘Tasty Tuesday’ baking programme. This has enhanced children’s opportunities to experiment with units of measure

as they weigh ingredients and use language such as more, less, heavy, light, full, empty.

Children aged 3-5 have engaged in our home link literacy and numeracy packs which go away each weekend to a child’s home. This provides the children with experiences that will engage them in stories, rhymes, puzzles and games alongside their family and therefore further enhance their literacy and numeracy skills.

All of our pre-school children have had the opportunity to participate in our 4 week forest adventures programme. During this time, children have the opportunity to assess and manage risk, develop their problem solving skills, explore their natural environment, develop

the use of their body and extend their use of language and vocabulary

All pre-school children received a transition pack in April devised by the nursery teacher. This has a clear focus on literacy and numeracy skills that the parent and child can work on at home prior to starting school.

Comment on strategies that have been successful in engaging with children and young people, staff, parents and the wider community and the impact of these.

A wide range of consultation methods are used across all our stakeholders. We aim to take on board all advice and suggestions from children, parents, staff and the wider community and act on them to make improvements to our centre.

Children Children’s views are actively sought on what and where they would like to learn each day. The planning takes into account children’s interest and suggestions to best meet individual learning styles. We have an established children’s committee who support us in making changes within the environment, assist in purchasing new resources, planning areas and feeding back to their peers and parents about the changes that have occurred. We have recently established further children’s committee groups linked to staff’s co-ordinators roles. This ensures that all children have a voice and a part to play in the centre’s developments. These co-ordinators committees are involved in child friendly audits of currents practice and encouraged to identify changes required to improve practice. After receiving the literacy and numeracy packs, each child is

encouraged to complete an evaluation form to reflect on what they linked or disliked about the packs. These evaluations are used to make improvements and add new resources. For example, one child said the home link dolly, Charley, didn’t want to sleep in his clothes, therefore we have added pyjamas to the pack as well as a toothbrush to enhance awareness of care needs whilst they have the pack home.

ParentsWe continue to strive for better parental engagement with a vast range of family learning opportunities promoted every month. This includes regular Mind Map leaflets to investigate what children already know about particular aspects we are learning about. ‘Learning Together’ leaflets go out every time our learning interests change, which includes links to what we are learning at nursery and how this can be enhanced at home. We have a parents group Facebook page which the majority of our parents are part of. This is highly effective at informing our parents about daily learning, changes to routines, up and coming events, reminders, etc. We have recently begun using the Facebook poll to gather viewpoints of parents on particular subjects i.e. the introduction of online learning journals. This was a very successful and quick way to gather parent’s response with 100% of those who responded opting for the move to e-journals. We are currently trialling the online learning journals with a view to go live with these in August. We are hopeful this will greatly increase the parental involvement within the centre and provide simple methods for parents to share their child’s learning from home. All of our preschool children have taken part in the literacy and numeracy home link packs with 100% of parents providing positive feedback and evidence of their child engaging with the pack at home. All pre-school children received a transition pack in April and feedback from parents have been highly positive, stating how engaged their children have been in the contents of the pack. The Head or Depute of the establishment hold monthly parent’s meetings where all parents/carers are invited to come along for an informal update on the centre’s progress and developments. In the month of May, the parents were consulted on session 2017/18 improvement plan and discussions around our achievements. Parents thereafter contributed their thought and ideas for priority areas over sessions 2018/19. Minutes of the meetings and further consultation sheets (when required) go out afterwards to provide all parents who cannot make the meetings, the opportunity to be informed and consulted.

StaffImprovement planning within our centre is a full team approach with all staff playing a valuable role in meeting our priorities. Staff are fully involved during in-service days in evaluating the current session’s plan and contributing their thoughts and ideas to our priorities for the year ahead. All staff have a distributed leadership role which was identified during their Performance Appraisal. Staff are consulted regularly at meetings about the progress they have made in their co-ordinators role and what they are going to do now. Staff have further enhanced their action plans from their co-ordinators roles by making effective use of the new updated HGIOELCC toolkit. This ensures that staff have a clear understanding of the Quality Indicators and requirement for continuous improvements. Staff have gone through a significant period of change since January with the appointment of a new Head of Establishment. This has naturally brought about endless consultation and discussions surrounding practice, procedures, routines, planning, observations, learning journals, etc. Staff have embraced these opportunities and have been very honest in sharing their views, ideas and suggestions. As a team, we have identified and made many changes over the past few months. Although this has been challenging for all involved, staff report that felt fully consulted and involved in the journey of change and feel they can clearly see the benefits of the enhanced provision we offer for all stakeholders. Wider Community We have excellent relationships with both Cathkin and Rutherglen high school. We provide opportunities for work experience for many pupils including students completing their Duke of Edinburgh award. This year we have had the talented drama students from both Rutherglen and Cathkin High putting on performances from our children and staff. Music students demonstrating their talents on their preferred instruments for our children to sing along to. Students engaging our children in baking experiences. We also make full use of the facilities within the school as we have a weekly timetable slot in Cathkin’s gym hall where our children participate in the physical connections programme. Our 0-3 children are becoming familiar with their local amenities during their weekly bookbug visits to the library, enhancing the language and communication skills. The 3-5 children have embraced their links with our local elderly care home where our children engage in fun learning experiences alongside the residents, bringing joy, contentment and excitement to all involved.

Quality Indicator

How are we doing? How do we know?School Self-Evaluation

1.1 Self-Evaluation for Self-Improvement

All staff have been allocated a co-ordinator’s role through the Performance Appraisal process which allows them to lead, drive, monitor and evaluate developments within the centre. They use the ‘How Good is Our Early Learning and Childcare’ toolkit to assist in the creation of an action plan.

All staff are actively involved in the construction, delivery and evaluation of our centres improvement plan.

Parents are provided with the opportunity to actively contribute to the centres improvement plan.

We actively involve all stakeholders in the evaluation of our service.

Effective playroom monitoring by management ensures high quality is sustained throughout the year.

All staff engage in peer assessments across the year to identify strengths and areas for development among their colleagues

All staff have an increased awareness of the evaluation process and supporting documentation. As a result, we have clear points for action in improving our practice across the key curriculum areas of Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing.

All staff have a clear understanding of the centre’s improvement journey and the vital role they all play in achieving this.

Parents are informed of the priorities for improving our centre and their contributions and ideas form an integral part of our operational plan.

All stakeholders are enabled to reflect on their views of our establishment. Feedback is valued and acted upon and our points for action are displayed on our ‘you said, we did wall’.

The children receive a consistently high standard of quality interactions to ensure that they continue to make good progress in their learning.

Staff are encouraged and supported by the feedback from their peers, leading further reflection for improvement.

Very Good

1.3Leadership of Change

We endeavour to promote an ethos of professional engagement and empower all staff to play an active leadership

Staff have raised confidence in their own ability which develops a culture of strong leaders within the centre.

Very Good

role within the centre. This is discussed during individual Performance Appraisal meetings.

Almost all staff engage effectively in shaping this establishment and feedback from parents reflects their confidence in the staff’s skills and contributions to their child’s learning.

We work collaboratively with all stakeholders to secure improved outcomes for our children and families.

All staff take responsibility of their own professional development. The majority of staff engage in professional reading and further training in their own time to deepen their understanding and knowledge of current early learning pedagogy.

Children are encouraged and supported to be leaders of learning, both during free play experiences and more structured opportunities. This is enhanced by the introduction of children’s committees which support our curriculum co-ordinators in driving forward the centre’s improvement priorities.

Staff feel valued in the role they play, resulting in a good work ethic and sense of achievement among the team.

Children and families feel supported throughout their learning journey and feel that their contributions to the centre are valued.

There is a raised awareness of current thinking among the team, resulting in higher quality experiences for our children and their families.

Children feel included and valued in the life of the centre resulting in a more child centred approach to learning and development.

2.3Learning, teaching and assessment

We promote a very nurturing ethos where positive relationships are promoted and evident throughout.

Children are developing a growing understanding of their place within their community and the positive contributions they can make to it.

Our children are highly motivated and fully engaged in a wide range of high quality experiences both indoors and

All children feel safe, secure and valued within our centre.

Children are becoming effective contributors within the community and are engaging in regular real life experiences across the local area.

Children make independence choices daily about what and where they would like to learn, resulting in them sustaining a

Good

out.

Monitoring is in place by senior management to ensure that all staff are highly effective in their role and supported where required to make further improvements.

All staff participated in purposeful observations training during February’s in-service day to improve the impact of what was being recorded on children

Staff have begun using the CFE bench marks to inform planning and observations.

higher level of interest in what they are engaged in.

Staff are well supported and feel confident in their own ability. They know that they can seek further assistance when required.

Observations are significant, meaningful and informative, ensuring that they inform future learning.

Staff have developed confidence in their professional judgments as a result of the benchmarks.

3.1Ensuring wellbeing, equity and inclusion

With our establishment staff have a sound understanding that relationships lie at the heart of children’s development and place great importance in nurturing these relationships from the onset.

The establishment’s ASN Co-ordinator is very focussed and has a very good understanding of GIRFEC and is very effective in her role. She ensures all staff are knowledgeable, supported, and effective in carrying out their tasks and duties

Management are supportive towards all team members and the staff’s wellbeing is of high importance.

Health and wellbeing is fully imbedded within our practice and this is evident throughout the centre

As a result, children and their families feel happy, settled, well supported, included and have a sense of belonging in our centre. This was evident from the positive feedback that we received from parents during our end of term consultations.

Feedback from parents suggests that children are well supported, the parents are well informed and parents have confidence in the team to deal with any issues that may arise with their child.

Feedback from staff suggests that they feel included, supported and consulted. Staff state that management are approachable and willing to listen.

All staff speak confidently about the importance of the overall wellbeing of our children and families and regularly strive to meet their needs in whichever way they can.

Very Good

Children are encouraged and supported to participate in a range of developmentally appropriate activities which allows them to engage in decisions that affect them.

All staff engage in continuous professional development and ensure that they comply with all statutory legislation and codes of practice.

All children are involved in a committee across many aspects of curriculum planning. Resulting in children playing a key role in the developments, changes and improvements that happen across this area.

The staff speak confidently about their role and their requirements to fulfil their statutory duties.

3.2 Securing Children’s Progress

We have a strong focus on Health and Wellbeing to ensure a very positive impact for our babies, toddlers and young children.

Staff have a clear understanding of how children develop early language skills and mathematical thinking and provide an appropriate amount of adult and child led experiences to support this.

Children play an increasing role in the developments of literacy and numeracy both indoors and out.

We work well with a range of other professionals to deliver a variety of Health and Wellbeing programmes throughout the year and almost all children have accessed these. The impact of these are recorded through planning evaluations, programme evaluations and individual observations on individual children.

Management team carry out regular informal and formal playroom visits to identify good practice and highlight areas for improvement. Planning formats have been reviewed and evaluations are carried out using the CFE benchmarks to ascertain children progress across the E&O. All staff participated in in-service training on purposeful observations to secure children’s progress. Staff observe children daily and record their significant learning across all aspects of CFE. The garden area has been enhanced to provide rich literacy and mathematical opportunities outdoors.

A literacy, numeracy and Health and Wellbeing children’s committee has been established to increase children’s involvement and participation in

Good

The Nursery Teacher has had effective methods of supporting children with specific programmes and activities for family engagement, including a nursery rhyme of the month and ‘learning Together’ suggestions which go home to parents each month.

Within our centre, all key workers know each child very well as an individual and as a learner. They support children effectively to ensure that they all make very good progress emotionally, socially, physically and cognitively.

these areas.

A few of our parents provided evidence from home of children engaging in the suggested learning. This is transferred to the children’s learning books to provide a fuller picture of the child as a learner.

Children’s personal learning plans are completed in consultation with parents, ensuring a collaborative approach to individualised learning. Individual observations are recorded in children learning books to ensure that significant learning is identified and effectively build upon.

Overall evaluation of establishment’s capacity for continuous improvementThis year our setting has saw a new Head of Establishment and 2 new Early Years Workers join the team. Excellent relationships have been formed, a whole team approach to supporting change is evident and the staff team seem settled.

There is a common understanding among our team that we are unable to make continuous improvements within our centre without the support from all stakeholders. We make full use of relevant tools such as the National Improvement Framework, Curriculum for Excellence, Building the Ambition and How Good Is Our Early Learning and Childcare to support us in our self-evaluation process.

Staff all play a key role in the improvement planning process and are becoming increasingly confident in the use of supporting tools. Staff take full responsibility to manage their own workload and timescales to ensure we meet our goals. Through the performance appraisal process, they are aware of the need for continuous professional development in order to meet their own developmental targets. All staff engage in peer assessments and playroom evaluations across the year to identify strengths and areas for improvement among colleagues.

The management team are committed to setting achievable targets within our centre and tackling bureaucracy to ensure all recording is meaning, purposeful and has an impact on the service delivery.

We are continuously looking for new and innovative ways to involve all stakeholders in our self-evaluation process and feedback has suggested that many would value a move to more electronic options. We have begun this process by introducing polls and feedback options on our parents Facebook page and offering electronic questionnaires to all stakeholders at the end of term. This will be rolled out further in the new term.

Signed:

Date: 27/6/18