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.  This is an increase of 30 children.  We are not currently at full capacity within the 3-5 room; however with the increase in housing in the surrounding area, this may shortly change.

Cleddens EL&CC sits within the Woodhill area of Bishopbriggs South and we allocate term time places for children aged 3-5 years from this area and can offer extended day places year round to children 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.

In 2016 Cleddens were successful in gaining communication friendly status, supported by the Educational Psychology team and Speech and Language Therapists.  We developed our staff skills in 5 different areas; including staff : child interactions and the communication friendly environment.  We have had to establish the new environment to ensure its effectiveness in supporting children’s communication and we will continue to monitor this against the standards to continue with and to make further improvements; including how we continue to effectively communicate and engage with our parents to ensure they have information on their child’s learning.

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 the year ahead include embedding practices within the Centre that have been established within our previous setting and providing our staff team with any relevant training to develop this; including further nurture training for additional staff. We will continue to offer opportunities for our parents and carers to engage within the Centre, supporting our language groups – teaching French and taking part in our Triple P groups and primary care sessions.

We will be working with our Cluster group partners within Turnbull and Bishopbriggs clusters to develop our programmes of learning within Literacy and Numeracy with a focus on skills development and taking into account the Education Scotland Benchmark Statements; working towards children’s achievement of a level.  The staff team will have opportunities for moderation and working with cluster colleagues during in service days to further enhance their practice.

We will be supported by our link Educational Psychologist and East Dunbartonshire Council to implement the PATHS programme which will assist our Early Years Practitioners in enhancing the environment to help our young children develop self-esteem, emotional awareness, problem solving and social skills to support in making friendships. This will complement our existing initiatives in providing for children’s individual needs and offer opportunities for leadership opportunities at all levels.