Dennistoun Early Years Centre

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Learning through play

Learning through play and active learning

In the Centre we support each child’s development by planning learning experiences and supporting children’s learning through play and active learning. We provide a wide variety of play experiences based on children’s interests and learning needs. Learning occurs as the child experiences things for themselves.

It is not the final outcome of the experience that matters as much as how the child arrives there.  For example, it is not really important whether or not a baking experience looks or tastes exactly how it should.  Rather, it is more important that the child is developing skills such as problem solving, understanding scientific processes such as how the ingredients change when they are mixed together or how they change when they are cooked and so on. When the children learn in this active way it is not only fun but the learning experiences will be more purposeful and meaningful, not only now but in later life.

Staff will regularly photograph and observe your child during their play these are used to assess your child’s progress.

It is important to point out if your child comes home empty handed, don’t worry it certainly doesn’t mean they haven’t been learning.

Within the nursery we follow the guidance of Curriculum for Excellence, Pre-Birth to Three- Positive Outcomes for Scotland’s Children and Families and Realising the Ambition to guide us in ensuring the best practice for children.  The following video gives families an insight into how early years settings observe, assess and plan childrens learning. 

How we plan & support children’s learning

We help children to learn by finding out what they are interested in and planning learning experiences to support their learning and development. We do this through:

  • Listening and interacting with the children during their play
  • By showing an interest and pleasure in their achievements.
  • Questioning the children and helping them to think for themselves.
  • And establishing partnerships with our parents.

Staff observe children to find out what they are interested in this information is used to plan experiences.

The staff decide what we expect children to learn each term. This is called our mid term plan, we have a very flexible approach to planning, we regularly monitor and evaluate children’s experiences and identify the learning focus in response to observations of children and evaluations of learning.

Within the nursery we follow the guidance within curriculum for excellence to plan for children from 3 to 5 years old. Click on the Youtube link below for further information 

Click on link below to access the Education Scotland -Curriculum for Excellence website.

 

Click on the links below for further information on key documents we use to guide our practice:

Health and Social Care Standards

Getting it right for every child

Education Scotland

How good is our early learning and childcare

Realising the ambition