Summers Nurseries

Children under 3 follow the national guidance set out in the Scottish Pre-Birth to Three document, which gives the context for high quality care and development, and ensures a smooth transition to the Curriculum for Excellence for child aged 3-18 years.

Children aged 3-18 follow the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, where they learn through quality play experiences, which helps to develop their confidence, curiosity, language and early maths skills, with a focus on building strong relationships. Play is a natural and essential part of a child's development which helps them to explore the world around them, where they can ask questions and make discoveries.

The curriculum covers literacy and language, numeracy and maths, health and wellbeing, expressive arts, RMPS, science, social studies and technologies. We cover all areas in our responsive planning, which focuses on developing each child in all areas, and reflects their interests. For example, if your child shows a specail interest in numbers, then we will help your child to count to 100 and beyond, and they will learn to add and subtract if that is what they want to do. If they have a love of language, then we will encourage them to sound letters and read words. We will also encourage the budding and enthusiastic artist, and possibly inspire the next Monet, or even find another Stephen Hawking!

Along with traditional learning materials, we encourage loose parts play with items such as bark, pebbles, cones, cardboard boxes, as well as real items such as China tea sets, old fashioned dialling phones, flowers, herbs etc which encourages children to explore with different combinations, fostering an increase in creativity, problem solving and critical thinking.

We value a close partnership with parents, and recognise that they have an active role in their child's development. We invite them to give talks or share information and ideas about specific topics/areas and will update child observations to our online Interactive Learning Diary, as well as encourage parents to post their own observations, so we can share between home and nursery and vice versa. We have termly parents' meetings to update and review progress, and discuss children's focus weeks, and we also have our full Parents Evening at the end of the summer term. We have regular updates and news on our private Nursery Facebook page, and parents receive a termly newsletter.

Within our curriculum, our exciting environment offers trips, regular walks, as well as visits to the nursery. Our 3-5 rooms regularly visit our Wee Green Space where the children love exploring nature, and we also have specialist teachers come into nursery for our pre-schoolers, for example, music and movement dance classes, rugby, French.

Our qualified and experienced staff support every child to make sure everyone reaches their full potenial in a warm, caring and stimulating environment from staff who know the chidlren well. Our Nursery Managers either have or are working towards their BA or PDA in Childhood Practice.

The nurseries use the Building Ambition document which supports staff who are working with babies and young children.