Category Archives: News

Infection Prevention and Control

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I’ve heard that some of our children have been struck down with a vomiting bug this week and havent been well enough to enjoy our snow days.

Tummy bugs are notoriously difficult to manage in an early years setting as I’m sure you all appreciate however I wanted to let you know that I have been going through our Infection Prevention and Control Policy today to make sure we are all up to date with the latest guidance. This policy is one of our core policies and this incident validates the need for all of our service users and staff to be aware of and be acting in accordance with all of our policy documents.

To this end I am committed to ensure that we have a completely updated set of policies in place by the end of the session. These will require to be ratified per the constitution, however once this process is complete the staff team will be promoting the policies to you.

Meantime, I hope all our little ones are recovering and havent been too poorly. Jordan and I will be reinforcing our hand washing policy and ensuring we and our children are all doing the best they can to stop the spread of infection.

Jane

Friday March 2nd

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Our lovely Spring weather is continuing and we have just had confirmation from the Council that schools and nurseries will remain closed tomorrow (Friday March 2nd). Playgroup will follow suit and also be closed. We do hope that the weather conditions improve and that we will see everyone on Monday ☃️

ChildSmile Update

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Latest update from ChildSmile

“The Childsmile Executive, at its recent meeting, discussed an agenda item concerning the Childsmile Toothbrushing Programme and infection control.

Currently NHS Forth Valley advise that we cease toothbrushing where there are outbreaks of enteric (water and food bourne) illness.

Following the recent meeting we can now inform you that with regard to toothbrushing and infection control there is no evidence for discarding toothbrushes.

Under no circumstances staff halt toothbrushing for any cases of childhood illness including sickness and diarrhoea”

#childsmile

Wed Feb 28th 2018

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Sorry everyone but we have decided that playgroup will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday Feb 28th) in light of Stirling Council’s decision to close all schools and nurseries because of adverse weather. I would be grateful if you could spread the word around. Thanks

#WeTalkMakaton

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Very proud and pleased to have completed the last of the Makaton for Professionals Enhancement workshops today. My brain is now bursting with the signs and symbols spinning round it. Its been such a good course though and made very enjoyable by tutor Karen (@makatoncentral) and my fellow classmates. Just got to keep putting it into pratice now!

#Wetalkmakaton

OWLs Networking Weekend

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I’ve had a lovely weekend meeting new people and learning some new skills. I attended workshops on loose parts and how many opportunities for learning they provide as well as how they fit so easily into our curriculum, the physics of fire (fascinating to watch but not one I’ll be doing at home!) and, probably my favourite, making my very own wand.

The State of Play

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Was at a really interesting seminar in Glasgow this afternoon on the State of Children’s Play. I hope to write more about this later (or bore you all with it 😉 ) but it served only to reinforce my conviction that the play based ethos of a PLAYgroup is significantly beneficial to children. Children need self directed play experiences to allow their brains to develop. In a competitive society, however, where we rush to get children ready for school, we risk forcing education onto children before their brains have developed capacities such as reasoning and self-control. Without these basic skills teaching becomes much more difficult. The analogy of trying to build a house on sand comes to mind.