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Early Years Scotland Conference, 30 September 2017
Eliminating Educational Inequality: Getting to Grips with the Gap in the
Early Years
World Café – Delegate Feedback
Early Years Scotland recently hosted a World Café at our annual conference.
Delegates were invited to choose topics of interest and share their knowledge and
insight with colleagues from across the Early Learning and Childcare sector. Here, we
present a round-up of the rich conversation and debate that ensued around practice,
pedagogy and policy. The conversations centred around 10 themes.
World Café Theme 1: Language and Literacy
Early language skills – listening, understanding words, speaking, listening to music, enjoying
rhymes and songs and building vocabulary – are the vital foundation to enable children to
learn to read: children first learn to talk and then learn to read. Recent research has
highlighted the fact that children in disadvantaged circumstances are twice as likely to
experience difficulties or delays in their language development, compared with other
children. High-quality services and support for children and families can help overcome this.
1. Supporting the home learning environment can help boost children’s early language
development. Early Learning and Childcare services have an important part to play in
bridging the gap between home and service, by engaging with parents about their
child’s development. What strategies could we employ to support parents in
developing the home learning environment?
Your responses included:
Effective communication with parents to ensure they understand the significance of
their role and the importance of promoting literacy
Be approachable/non-judgemental/respectful and build good connections and
relationships with families
Create home link bags/song bags/story sacks/bedtime books for parents to use at
home
Stay and Play evenings/Baby breakfasts/Practitioner home visits/support
groups/parenting programmes/workshops and a variety of other ways to include
parents as partners
Recognising and learning from good practice at home, valuing and respecting
parents and their knowledge and skills and learning from each other
Using visual aids and videos/display boards/social media instead of leaflets for
information sharing
Communication champions on your staff team
Making the most of external resources: I CAN/Bookbug/The Big Read/PEEP/VERP
training/online learning journals
2. How can services ensure that the environment, both indoors and outdoors, is
stimulating and promotes early language, speech and communication for all children?
Your responses included:
Staff development/regular training/sharing of practice/networking
A child-led approach utilising loose parts/free flow/suitable opportunity for
challenge
Enrich language by creating a nurturing environment, encourage curiosity, stimulate
the senses
Effective self-evaluation, quality observations and interactions and knowledgeable,
skilled practitioners
Build services around Curriculum for Excellence and Building the Ambition
Ensure evidence of literacy across all areas of the environment
Provide opportunities for making connections, comparisons and categorising, for
mark-making and encourage talking and listening
World Café Theme 2: Creating a Rich Play Environment
Early Learning and Childcare staff understand the significance of the environment for
children’s learning and development. Consider your knowledge and awareness about how
children use their space and resources and how this helps them to follow their interests,
explore and take risks and to have a voice.
1. How do environments influence children’s experiences and opportunities for learning
and development?
Your responses included:
Environments must be rich, robust, calm, homely purposeful and natural. They must give
children freedom and invite them to be creative
Open ended, natural and well planned resources are key
Adults are a resource
Parental engagement is key
Children must have an influence on their environment
Whether indoors or outdoors, literacy, numeracy and wellbeing must be embedded
across the environment
Primary 1 should be free-flow, accessible and play-based
2. Can you suggest the main areas of focus in creating a rich play environment?
Your responses included:
Staff must know how to observe children, create next steps and follow the child’s
interests
Create child-centred spaces that offer challenge, choice, stimulation and opportunities
to be creative
Focus on staff development and professional learning
Ensure access to challenging play, risky play and physical play as well as opportunities for
problem-solving
Ensure opportunity for role play and dramatic play/literacy and numeracy
World Café Theme 3: Effective Parental Engagement
‘Parental and family engagement is a key factor in helping all children achieve the highest
standards whilst reducing inequity and closing the attainment gap.’ (National Improvement
Framework, 2016).
Practitioners involve parents and carers by enabling effective ongoing, two-way
communications between home and the setting.
1. What do you consider to be the main benefits of effective parental engagement in
your setting/Early Learning and Childcare settings?
Your responses included:
Development of home learning environment and creating shared goals
Sharing ideas and knowledge and working together with parents to create a better
understanding of the individual child
Create a shared language of learning/encourage parents who have had negative experiences
of education to become involved
Offer support for parents and listen to their views and opinions
Tap into parents’ skillsets and encourage them to be more involved in the setting/create
shared vision, values and aims of the setting
Early intervention
2. What do you consider to be the main barriers to effective parental engagement in
your setting/Early Learning and Childcare settings?
Your responses included:
Staff knowledge/skillset
Time constraints/accessibility/flexibility
Communication/language barriers
Culture and knowledge of the importance of the early years
3. Consider the barriers you have identified. Suggest how these could be
addressed/overcome within the ELC sector.
Your responses included:
Relaxation time/mindfulness/PEEP
Consider different approaches to working with parents/evaluate practice
Grandparents stay and play
Develop trusting relationships
Introduce a social committee for parents
Consider strategies for communication - social media/online journals/resources in different
languages
World Café Theme 4: Working with Families Experiencing Difficulties
Scottish education serves many children well, but the attainment gap between children from
the richest and poorest backgrounds is wider than in many similar countries. The Scottish
Government has introduced many different initiatives aimed at supporting families
experiencing difficulties.
1. How can we improve outcomes for all children ensuring excellence and equity of
opportunity?
Your responses included:
Early intervention and preventative work
Understand the significance of the home learning environment and support the whole
family
Effective partnership working/Sharing best practice across settings and areas
More investment in early years
Staff teams – communication, consistency and continuity
Evaluate your practice
Quality, purposeful professional learning
2. What support do practitioners need in order to best fulfil their responsibilities
towards children and families experiencing difficulties?
Your responses included:
Networking with other professionals/more focus on multi-agency approaches/collaboration
with health visitors
To feel valued and support by management/families/the wider education sector
Effective leadership
Role models and mentors/supervision and support
Counselling skills
More time and better levels of funding
World Café 5: Transitions
Children experience a number of transitions in their early years. Their confidence and
resilience can be enhanced when commitment is given to support these transitions with
sensitive planning, preparation and effective communication between services.
1. What are the main benefits of effective transitions in the early years?
Your responses included:
Sense of security, love and stability/more potential for positive attachments
Greater self-esteem/reduced stress/builds resilience
Effective parental partnerships
Support for learning/next steps
Information sharing/communication/early intervention
2. Consider creative approaches to transitions that you have implemented or observed.
Share your thoughts and ideas.
Your responses included:
Home visits/’All About Me’ books
Consultation with children and families
Playful pedagogy
Transition objects
Use of wall displays
Buddy systems/sibling visits
Multi-agency working and sharing of information (appropriately)
World Café Theme 6: Expanding the Workforce by 2020
The most important driver of quality in Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) is a dedicated,
highly-skilled and well-qualified workforce, whose initial and continued professional learning enables
them to fulfil their professional role. Scotland is already leading the way across the UK in its ambition
to have a highly qualified and regulated workforce. The expansion will see this workforce grow
substantially, resulting in the creation of new positions across all grades providing employment
opportunities for new entrants to the sector, as well as progression opportunities for existing staff.
1. What challenges do you anticipate in recruiting new entrants to the sector?
Your responses included:
How do we make it an appealing sector to people with life experience?
Quality and sustainability
Pay/benefits
Status and gender profile of the sector
Pay scales that are standard across the sector (private/voluntary/local authority)
Losing the ‘best’ students to the teaching profession after they gain qualifications
Encouraging careers teachers/guidance to have a better understanding of the sector
2. (a) What can we do to change perceptions about a career in ELC and ensure it is an
attractive and long-term career choice?
(b) How can we attract a more diverse workforce that better represents wider society in
Scotland?
Your responses included:
Promote a deeper understanding of early years role across the education sector
Show opportunities for progression
Highlight the value of the sector/promote the outcomes for children
Promote volunteering as a route into employment
Targeted recruitment to improve diversity/men in childcare
Raise professional status/BACP not always valued
World Café Theme 7: Expanding ELC Entitlement from 600 – 1,140 hours
The 1140 hours expansion will require substantial levels of investment in workforce and
infrastructure in order to ensure that the required capacity is in place by 2020 to enable full roll-out
of the expanded entitlement. Given the transformative nature of the expansion, and the potential
structural changes for the sector, a number of challenges may be experienced by providers in order
to achieve the desired result of high quality services and accessible services underpinned by
flexibility, choice and affordability.
1. What do you consider to be the main challenges of effective implementation of the
1,140 hours?
Your responses included:
Job opportunities/training
Ensuring quality of staff/experienced staff team
Funding
Workforce stress
Operational issues and logistics e.g. lunches/sleep/cooking/ratios for younger children
Maintaining effective communication across a staff team/shift work
Children spending less time with their own families leading to attachment issues
1. What professional learning opportunities should be in place in order for the
workforce to adapt to the 1,140 hours entitlement?
Your responses included:
Opportunity to share practice with other professionals
Practical training for college students
Staff swaps/visiting other settings
Technology could be used to widen opportunities for learning/releasing staff is challenging
Appropriate training for a degree qualified workforce
Training on enabling environments/Nurture
Modern apprenticeships
Professional dialogue
World Café Theme 8: Provision for eligible 2 year olds
If we are serious about closing the attainment gap in Scottish Education, we must have high
aspirations and expectations for all children. When we look at the current and future plans
for providing Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) for eligible two year olds, we need to ensure
that the focus is on leading high quality provision delivered by sensitive, skilled, committed
and well qualified staff. As the number of hours of Early Learning and Childcare offered
continues to increase, we must ensure that quality is not compromised.
1. What must be taken into account in developing and delivering effective environments
for 2 year olds?
Your responses included:
Environment – indoor and outdoor
Training that includes child development/understanding milestones
Staff visiting other settings/professional collaboration
Knowledge of schematic play
Pre-birth to Three Training
Understanding and knowledge of attachment and emotional development and nurture
Routines/furniture/mixing age groups/energetic play/music and rhyme
2. What professional learning opportunities should be offered for practitioners working
with 2 year olds in order to support children’s learning and development?
Your responses included:
Conferences/opportunities to share good practice/networking events
What is it like to be 2?
Pre-birth to Three
Outdoor learning/gardening
Music and instruments
How children learn
Schemas
Child development and milestones/Brain Development/Attachment
Mixing age groups
Training for parents/family learning opportunities
World Café Theme 9: Outdoor Learning
‘There is a growing body of research that shows that young children’s access to nature and
outdoor play is positively associated with improved self-esteem, physical health, development
of language skills and disposition to learning’ (Davy, 2009).
According to the Care Inspectorate, the quality of children’s experience in Scotland is
generally very positive. As well as the specialist outdoor-based provision, services have
improved children’s outdoor play experiences using both their own outdoor play areas and
the natural environment locally.
1. What could we improve on/do better in our outdoor learning provision?
Your responses included:
More free-flow outdoor learning/less structure
Ensure staff and parents understand the importance of outdoor and risky play
Accessible staff training
Staff motivation
Bring the outdoors inside/reduce the plastic in settings
Observe and compare children’s wellbeing indoors and outdoors
Encourage more loose parts play
Better understanding of how to use the outdoor environment for learning/link to literacy
and numeracy
Share good practice re. resources/challenge/innovative ways to explore the outdoors
More opportunities for training
2. Consider your observations of innovative or good practice with regard to outdoor
learning. Share your thoughts and ideas.
Your responses included:
Visits to local woods/beaches/wild areas
Limit adult intervention/offer freedom of choice/build life skills
Support/training for childminders
Outdoor classrooms
Den building
Parents volunteering
Improve planning for outdoor learning
Link loose parts to STEM learning/problem solving
Create bug hunts/bug houses
Create opportunities for water/mud/sensory play
Encourage parental engagement
World Café Theme 10: Scottish Government EYS ELC Expansion Trial
'By trialling different methods with local authorities and child care providers, we will be better
able to understand what parents and children need and want, and what is actually working.
This will be crucial as we move forward with our transformational expansion of childcare.’
First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
Early Years Scotland has been working in partnership with Aberdeen City Council to deliver an
ELC Expansion Trial. The project’s title is 2 Stay, Play and Learn and it is an innovative
approach to providing ELC for eligible for two year olds. The main difference between this
unique EYS model and other ELC provision, is that instead of dropping their child at nursery,
the parents stay, play and learn too.
1. How might this innovative way of engaging with families benefit the child and
ultimately support the aim of closing the attainment gap?
Your responses included:
Benefits the child by supporting and educating parents and carers
Promotes the home learning environment
Builds and maintains relationships and encourages partnership working
Models good practice and reinforces messages about learning
Collaborative approach leading to parents and setting taking a consistent approach
Supports parents’ mental health and increases confidence
Allows parents to use their strengths and talents
2. What additional types of professional learning do you think staff may appreciate in
order to work effectively with adults and children in this kind of setting?
Your responses included:
Working with 2 year olds
Refresher courses on child development
Facilitated family discussion groups/online courses for families
Working with adults/building communication skills/active listening/
Conferences/membership of groups
Mental health guidance/dealing with people with addictions/counselling skills
All comments and discussions at the World Café offered valuable information and
served to enrich the debate and dialogue. This report serves simply to give a flavour
of the feedback from our wide range of experienced and knowledgeable delegates
and is not a verbatim account of all feedback.
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