Steering documents

The Scottish Government’s aim is to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up, and to give all children the best possible start in life. It is widely acknowledged that the provision of universally accessible and high quality ELC is a cornerstone for closing the educational attainment gap - and consequent gaps later in the lifecourse, such as pay gaps.

The delivery of an overall system of high quality, flexible, accessible and affordable ELC is central to the Scottish Government’s ambition of eradicating child poverty. Expanding the entitlement to ELC is also seen as one of the most important tools to support long-term inclusive growth in Scotland’s economy.

The Scottish Government’s is commitment to further increasing the funded ELC entitlement to 1140 hours is underpinned by the principles of Quality, Flexibility, Accessibility and Affordability. From August 2020, any setting delivering the funded ELC hours is required to meet a new National Standard, which includes a national set of quality criteria.

Curriculum for Excellence is the main guidance to providers on the delivery of the curriculum within early learning and childcare for children aged 3-5. It promotes a coherent and inclusive curriculum from age 3 to 18 for all educational settings. The early level of Curriculum for Excellence encompasses the two years prior to starting school, and Primary 1.

Curriculum for Excellence

Early education for 3-5 year olds is incorporated in Curriculum for Excellence. This promotes a coherent and inclusive curriculum from 3 to 18 in all educational settings. It should have as its characteristic features:

• A focus on outcomes
• A broad general education
• More opportunities to develop skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work for all young people at every stage
• A focus on literacy, numeracy and health and well-being at every stage
• Appropriate pace and challenge for every child
• Ensuring connections between all aspects of learning
• Ensuring personal support for each child
• Time to take qualifications in ways best suited to the young person

The Curriculum for Excellence includes four aspects - all of which contribute to the development and achievements of children and young people at all stages of their education. These are:

• The ethos and life of the early learning and childcare setting/school community
• Curriculum areas and subjects
• Interdisciplinary learning
• Opportunities for personal achievement

See 2.1 Fundamental Principles and National Policies for more information on Curriculum for Excellence.

The Scottish Government publication Building the Curriculum 2 - Active Learning in the Early Years (2007) sets out the principles for early education within Curriculum for Excellence.

Building the Ambition

Building the Ambition provides guidance on Early Learning and Childcare for practitioners, supporting them to put the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 into practice.

Pre-Birth to Three

Pre-Birth to Three provides national guidance to inform and support all adults who work with or on behalf of young children from early pregnancy to the age of three. It focuses on the importance of this early stage of a child’s development for their long term outcomes.

Areas of learning and development

Curriculum for Excellence

The curriculum for the final two years of early learning and childcare (previously “pre-school education”), and the early part of primary education are grouped together as one stage of development.

This level of the framework emphasizes Experiences and Outcomes for children’s learning. These are ways which will support active learning in both early learning and childcare settings, and early primary school; and encourage better continuity and progression for all children.

Active learning is learning which engages and challenges children’s thinking using real-life and imaginary situations. It takes full advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by:

• Spontaneous play
• Planned, purposeful play
• Investigating and exploring
• Events and life experiences
• Focused learning and teaching. Including (when necessary), sensitive intervention to support or extend learning.

Experiences and Outcomes are organised in eight curricular areas for education 3-15:

• Expressive Arts
• Health and Well-being
• Languages (including literacy, English and foreign languages)
• Mathematics (including numeracy)
• Religious and Moral Education
• Sciences
• Social Studies
• Technologies

The Experiences and Outcomes were developed through an extensive process of engagement with local authorities, schools, teachers and other interested bodies. Final versions were published in April 2009. Those associated with the Early level are relevant to early learning and childcare and the beginning of primary education. They can be accessed on the Education Scotland website.

Decisions about the amount of time devoted to each of the different curriculum areas are left to the early learning and childcare setting/school. Teachers and other early learning and childcare practitioners have a responsibility to develop and reinforce; health and well-being, literacy, and numeracy, learning across all curricular areas.

Education Scotland, when inspecting early learning and childcare, expects that children should experience an appropriate balance across the eight areas of the curriculum. Children should have appropriate opportunities to lead their own learning. Children are also expected to have at least 1 hour each week outdoors.

Building the Ambition

Building the Ambition provides guidance focused on six key themes of learning and care for 0-5 year olds:

• The image of the child
• The distinction between play and learning
• Attachment
• Pedagogy
• What young children need
• Quality.

Within these key themes, the guidance aims to support practitioners to:

• Build confidence and capability for those who work with young children from birth to starting school
• Make links between practice, theory and policy guidance to reinforce aspects of high quality provision and the critical role played by early years practitioners
• Clarify some aspects of current practice and provide a reference which practitioners can easily use
• Support improvement and quality by encouraging discussion and reflective questioning about practice relevant in each setting
• Provide advice on achieving the highest quality ELCC possible to allow our youngest children to play their part in the Scottish Government’s ambition of Scotland being the best place in the world to grow up.

Pre-Birth to Three

The main aims of Pre-Birth to Three are:

• To facilitate effective partnership working for the benefit of every child
• To build confidence, capability and capacity across the current workforce
• To inform students engaged in pre-service training programmes
• To promote reflection, discussion and debate
• To share and inform ways in which staff support children
• To improve and enhance evidence-informed practice

This guidance is grounded in four key principles underlying work with young children to ensure each child gets the best start in life and achieves positive outcomes throughout life. These for key principles are: rights of the child, relationships, responsive care, and respect.

The document offers guidance for implementing these four key principles, through the following nine key features of practice:

• The role of staff
• Attachments
• Transitions
• Observation, Assessment and Planning
• Partnership working
• Health and wellbeing
• Literacy and numeracy
• Environments
• Play

Pedagogical approaches

Early learning and childcare practitioners are free to choose the learning/teaching methods they consider best suited to their children’s development. They usually make use of the national practice guidance Building the Ambition, and follow the principles for early education (set out in Building the Curriculum 2 - Active Learning in the Early Years (2007)) - described under Curriculum for Excellence above. Some local authorities provide their own guidance, based on these national publications, but tailored to the needs of a given area.

The national guidance emphasises active learning and engaging and challenging children’s thinking using real-life and imaginary situations.

The starting point for learning through play is effective planning for a range of suitable learning contexts with clear objectives which meet the needs of individual children.

Staff enable children to participate meaningfully in the various experiences, encourage them to take initiatives or pursue particular interests and observe individual reactions. They intervene to demonstrate that they share the children’s enthusiasm. This should also help the child develop their skills or through skillful use of questioning, supporting their deeper understanding.

There are many opportunities for children to listen and talk, explain their ideas and clarify their thinking, acquire new knowledge and learn to relate to others. These mainly include:

• Role play and activities involving art and music develop their expressive skills
• Physical play in natural environments and on large equipment, energetic games and activities manipulating smaller tools and materials enable them to develop the skills of movement and body control
• Observing natural objects and investigating the environment helps to build their understanding of the world.
• Mixing with other children, with whom they have to learn to co-operate during play, helps them to develop a sense of responsibility and establish new relationships.

These approaches are designed to enrich and develop all the areas of the curriculum for which Curriculum for Excellence sets out Experiences and Outcomes for children. Most early learning and childcare settings (and early stages classrooms in primary schools) are well-resourced, interesting places. In local authority settings, resources are acquired by the centre’s staff using funding provided by the authority.

Private and voluntary providers purchase their own resources, using funds received from local authorities and where applicable from charges made directly to parents. Large items of equipment (e.g. slides, climbing apparatus, wooden bricks, sand and water trays, painting easels, playhouses) and a wide range of small items (paints, clays, props for imaginative play, table-top games, coloured blocks, books and musical instruments) are common features of the early learning and childcare settings.

Children will often have access to a wide range of natural materials and 'loose parts'. Most settings also have well equipped areas for outdoor learning and physical activity. The local community and environment is also an important resource for early education. For example, there are often excursions to local shops, the park, the fire station etc.

Assessment

Within Curriculum for Excellence children’s progress is continuously assessed, discussed with parents, and used in planning the next steps in their learning and development.

Increasingly, early learning and childcare practitioners provide summative written reports for parents and the primary school to which the child transfers. They usually also discuss each child’s progress with the primary teachers.

Many local authorities have developed their own model of transition record that summarises children’s progress and achievements in the various aspects of the curriculum.

In some local authorities and establishments such transition records are incorporated into a process of Personal Learning Planning. This involves the children themselves reflecting on their learning and contributes to clear feedback and information for the children and their parents.