Early Learning and Childcare

Early Learning and Childcare in Clackmannanshire

All of our Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) providers meet the new national standard for high quality early learning and childcare.

There are no catchment areas in Early Learning and Childcare, so parents/carers have the choice of any ELC provider. When it is time for children to go to school, they will be entitled to a place in their catchment school, however a placing request will be required for a non-catchment school.

What’s on offer in Clackmannanshire?

Community Hubs

Clackmannanshire ELC providers have been broken into 4 community hubs: Sauchie, Alloa, Menstrie and Tullibody.

In each hub, parents/carers have the choice of:

A Clackmannanshire Council ELC setting which is open for 49 weeks per year;
School Nursey Classes open during term time 38 weeks per year;
Private partner nurseries are open all year; or
Childminder – please check with individual providers.

Realising the Ambition: Being Me

This newly published document builds on the previous Building the Ambition and Pre-Birth to Three documentation. It outlines research and evidence supporting child development across early learning and childcare and primary one.

Explore this resource

High quality provision consists of many different interconnected aspects. The imagery of tartan has been used in the guidance to remind us of the uniqueness of our Scottish context – with each section seen as an interconnected thread contributing to the whole piece. Although each section has been developed so it can be used in any order to meet different needs and different contexts we must always be mindful of this bigger picture.

The terms of ‘when I am a baby’, ‘when I am a toddler’ and ‘when I am a young child’ have been used to illustrate developmental needs over time – but these should not be seen as rigid lines of progression. All babies and young children develop their individual skills, knowledge and attributes at different rates according to who they are. The guidance can be used to support children with more complex needs by taking this into account.

The guidance can be used individually, or in short informal group settings where practitioners have time to come together, or as part of a more substantial CPL programme. We would recommend that at points of transition between ELC and primary school, the guidance can be used by designated staff working together to promote a clear understanding of curriculum progression and continuity in children’s learning and development.

Download(s)

PDF file: Realising the Ambition: Being Me (16.3 MB)

Challenge questions for each section

You will find challenge questions for sections of the guidance in this downloadable Powerpoint file:

PPT file: Realising the Ambition: Being Me - Challenge Questions (7 MB)

Please visit our blog - https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/cl/elccclacks/

Pedagogy and Practice

The Image of the child

“Each child is unique and a competent and active learner whose potential needs to be encouraged and supported. Each child is a curious, capable and intelligent individual. The child is a co-creator of knowledge who needs and wants interaction with other children and adults. As citizens of Europe children have their own rights which include early education and care.”

Early Childhood Education and Care: providing all out children with the best start for the world of tomorrow, European Commission (2001 as cited in Building the Ambition 2014).

The Early Level

“Early education in particular adopts a holistic approach to young children’s learning which responds to each child’s changing developmental needs and values a child’s prior knowledge from home.

Establishments have the scope to reflect the individual of their local communities and to respond by providing unique, high quality learning experiences for all their children. From the outset, young children are partners in the learning process, actively participating in the planning, shaping and directing of their own learning. With sensitive adults support they will learn how to make good, informed choices and take responsibility for their own learning.”

Building the Curriculum 3 (The Scottish Government 2008, p29)

The Hundred languages of Children

No way.

The hundred is there.

The child is made of one hundred.

The child has a hundred languages a hundred hands

a hundred thoughts

a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking.

a hundred, always a hundred ways of listening

of marveling, of loving a hundred joys

for singing and understanding a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent

a hundred worlds to dream.

The child has a hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture separate the head from the body.

They tell the child to think without hands to do without head

to listen and not to speak

to understand without joy to love and to marvel

only at Easter and Christmas.

They tell the child to discover the world already there and of the hundred

they steal ninety-nine. They tell the child that work and play

reality and fantasy

science and imagination sky and earth

reason and dream are things that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.

The child says

“No way – The hundred is there.”

Loris Malaguzzi

(translated by Lella Gandini)