Our Centre provides care and education for children 50 weeks per year, from 8am to 6pm.  We are able to take in 9 babies, 20 2-3 year olds and 114 3-5 aged children with an additional 16 places allocated for outdoor spaces. 

Cleddens EYC sits within the Woodhill area of Bishopbriggs South and we allocate funded places for children aged 3-5 years from this area and can offer extended day places year round to children from 6 weeks throughout East Dunbartonshire.  The majority of our children attend on an extended day and year basis and only a small minority fall into the lowest SIMD rank.

Over the past year the Centre has continued to develop its literacy programme through our literacy champion and practitioner enquiry. This has resulted in more staff adapting the Word Aware initiative and the 3 reads programme to support the development of early literacy and to increase vocabulary. In order to raise attainment in Numeracy we have been rolling out the Maths Recovery Programme. Staff training to support the programme has continued throughout the year and this year a group of children was identified who would benefit from challenge in Numeracy; children from the lowest SIMD were taken account of. This year we have further developed our outdoor space with the addition of a Lead Outdoor Educator and an Outdoor Champion. We have developed the physical landscape to give it definition, offering challenge, enjoyment and to develop curiosity. Almost all children choose to access the outdoor environment daily. Through arts based project with the University of Strathclyde we are continually reflecting our practice to ensure that children are choosing to access all areas and have identified ways through a risk/benefit assessment to provide some free flow to the outdoor areas for children.

We have a tracking system in place that follows the children throughout their experiences through a skills learning journey to ensure that children are making good progress throughout the early level. As a staff team we regularly discuss progress with the children and parents.  Where necessary we input support through local interventions, with involvement from parents, key worker, nursery teacher and support assistants.  For further interventions involving other educational partners or outside agencies, we support children through wellbeing indicators and in deciding what level of support may be required.  We have opportunities to discuss children with our partners during Support for All Groups.  Our staff observe children throughout their play to plan and form next steps and consider interventions required through using Ferre Laevers observations of wellbeing and involvement.  Our last Care Inspection in 2016 graded us as excellent in meeting children’s individual needs.

Our Priorities for this session reflect EDCs Recovery Planning in response to the COVID- 19 pandemic. We have been focussing on:

• Health and wellbeing including Nurture
• Family Engagement
• Transitions
• Continuing to ensure equity and educational continuity (in centre and home learning)