Welcome to Dingwall Primary
Early Learning Centre
“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” – Kay Redfield Jamison
Last updated 17/11/23
Our ELC Developments:
We are proud of the Outdoor Learning Opportunities that we provide for our children and the culture that we have developed over the past year for our staff to engage with professional reading to impact quality learning experiences for our children.
Throughout our setting you will see Froebell Approaches, which you can read more about here:
Froebel Trust | The power of play
ELC Improvement Plan
2023/2024
PLAy, PLAY, PLAY!
Our children's day is centred around time for play. Play is important for the early stages of brain development. Play helps to develop important skills for learning, life and work.
Children have a right to play. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states (in Article 31) that every child should have:
"The right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts."
Realising the Ambition is a national practice guidance document for Early Level pupils in Scotland.
We fully embrace this document at Dingwall ELC. You can access further information here:
ACHIEVEMENTS: We celebrate achievements at our ELC to P3 assemblies each week and build in time to share and display wider achievements from home in our Pupil Profiles.
Snack and Lunch
We offer a morning snack and follow the Highland Council's guidance on school snacks and healthy eating. We aim to provide a homely feel to snack and lunch and view these times as the perfect opportunity to develop language, numeracy and social skills. We have just opened our new snack room as part of our Improvement Plan for this session.
Children can bring a packed lunch or pre order a hot meal from our canteen. Nursery to P5 children are entitled to free school meals.
OPENING HOURS:
9:00am - 3:00pm
Monday - Friday
Term Time Only
From the term after your child's third birthday, your child can receive 30 hours of funded childcare per week.
Enrolment Enrolment takes place in February each year. You can enrol your child online:
www.highland.gov.uk/info/878/schools/11/enrol_your_child_for_early_learning_and_childcare/2
Profiling and Reporting - We use SeeSaw to build our children's profiles. Children's profiles centre around 4 folders - Life and Learning, Learning Targets, Evidence of Attainment and Parent Information.
Life and Learning – Showcases your child participating in all aspects of nursery life!
Learning Targets – Targets made with the children, which are identified through learning observations and areas for development.
Evidence of Attainment – Through observing your child in their play and through the use of floor books and interactions we gather evidence of your child meeting Early Level experiences and outcomes. In December 2022 we will have a floor book sharing session wih our parents.
Parent Information – Our ELC newsletters, parental surveys, self evaluation information and monthly sharing of school and authority policies.
Observations - These are currently under re-development to reflect focused child approaches quality observations are our main ELC improvement focus this session.
Developmental Overviews - Throughout the year, we observe, track and make next steps.
These observations are recorded in developmental overviews. These also provide a transition document for your child as they move into P1. You can view templates of these documents by clicking on the link below.
bumps2bairns.com/developmental-overviews/
Policies - Staff engage with a school or authority policy each week. We also share a policy once a month with our parents and ask for feedback on how we meet the standards.
We welcome parent feedback, comments and questions.
You can call us on: 01349 862081
You can e-mail: dingwall.primary@highland.gov.uk
Head Teacher:
sara-jane.macaskill@highland.gov.uk
