The Scottish Government

Case Study: Kincardine Nursery School, Glasgow City Council

Myra Reid

Early Years and Early Intervention Framework

Key theme

• Creating Communities That Provide a Supportive Environment for Children and Families.

Background and context

Kincardine Nursery School has a roll of 26 children aged two to three years and 89 children aged three to five years. The catchment area of Ruchazie, Garthamlock and Craigend is in the east end of Glasgow. The Nursery operates in term time and is open between 8.30 am and 4.30 pm. The nursery moved to a new campus in May 2007 which it shares with Avenue End Primary School and Croftcroighn School for children with complex learning difficulties (Nursery/Primary). An HMI inspection of the nursery in November 2007 reported that the nursery's partnership with parents and the community was a key strength.

The work of the centre

Why was creating communities that provide a supportive environment important?

• Encourages more mutual support between parents and others in the community.
• Equips children with enthusiasm for literacy and numeracy as early as possible.
• Maximises the contribution of adult services to supporting families.
• Optimises health protection and health promotion.
• Focuses on prevention, risk identification and early intervention.
• Joins up the education experience for children.

The HMI inspection reported that "the head teacher was approachable and worked hard to support staff, families and children. She had recently successfully led the development of new provision for children aged two to three years. The nursery had also relocated to a new learning campus where the head teacher had established very good and supportive links with other schools and the community.

In looking at creating communities that provide a supportive environment the key actions that were significant included:

• Encouraging parents to play an important part in their children's learning and development through:

o Expecting parents or carers to play with children at the start of the day whilst staff engage informally with any younger members of the family.

o Sensitively guiding parents with their child to an appropriate activity their child enjoys.

o Talking about books they read with children at home.

o Providing simple booklets "working together hand in hand with parents" on learning literacy and numeracy at home.

o Monthly leaflets: Learning at Home and in Nursery: In Nursery we will …..At home you could….How did you get on? What did you both learn? Can you suggest anything we could do in the nursery to take the learning forward?

• The head teacher's proactive approach to building relationships with families, professionals and agencies through the learning community.

• A learning community approach involving associated schools sharing certain targets and priorities along with joint staff development for instance, promoting healthy life styles.

• The joint venture with associated primary and secondary schools in promoting healthy life styles and eating is impacting positively on the community and parents report that children are determining shopping and very critical of unhealthy meals.

• Head teacher responding promptly to parent difficulties or problems by accessing appropriate services in the community.

• Engaging in a pilot project to provide an extra year of pre-school provision for children under three years of age, based on the research which suggests that an earlier start and longer time spent at nursery can be beneficial to child development and has particular benefits for disadvantaged children.

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• The pilot project targeted vulnerable children and referrals for limited places came from working with health visitors, social work partners and local knowledge of families.

• Creating a career progression for staff who lived in the local community by supporting catering staff and nursery assistants to obtain SVQ qualifications in childcare and education. HT and depute obtained qualified assessors and verifiers qualifications so practical element of course was delivered in the nursery. The nursery has Investor in People recognition.

• Strong links have been forged with other establishments in the New Learning Community to support continuity of learning and sharing of expertise. This has been especially notable in the relationship that Kincardine Nursery School has with Croftcroighn School. Since moving to a joint campus the two schools have shared resources and staff expertise. The children have benefited greatly from the inclusive atmosphere on the campus.

Impact and Outcomes for parents and families

A commitment to partnership working and resolving problems at an early stage has led to:

• High levels of participation by parents.

• Targeted vulnerable children enjoying and using books and numbers at a very early stage.

• Strong sense of an inclusive learning community.

• Adults gaining professional qualifications.