In light of this current cold snap I thought it would be worth sending you a little reminder about wearing layers and supplying spare clothes for children. This is particularly relevant for days when we are in the woods but also needed on non woods days as we still spend a significant amount of the day outside. If you have some cosy under layers in bags at all times we can support children to get them on before we go outside. A couple of years ago we made this video of one of our children getting ready to go out to play as a reminder of the importance of wearing the right clothes.
We are grateful to Willie Rennie, LibDeb MSP for North East Fife, for speaking up on CVN’s behalf at the Early Childhood Transformational Change Progamme debate last week. He, along with Roz McCall, Conservative MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Pam Duncan-Glancy Labour MSP for Glasgow, Fulton MacGregor, SNP MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston and Martin Whitfield Labour MSP for South Scotland all highlighted the financial difficulties facing services in the Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sectors who, as funded providers, deliver early learning and childcare on behalf of local authorities.
PVI have long campaigned for a review of early learning and childcare funding. It was encouraging therefore to see cross party recognition that the way Scottish Government allocates funding to PVI is, according to Willie Rennie, discriminating against the sector and which has, in the words of others contributing to the debate, resulted in crisis in a sector that is “struggling” and not financially viable.
The debate concluded with Natalie Don, SNP MSP for Renfrewshire North and West and Minister for Children, Young People and Keeping the Promise, stating she “is actively engaging in, and working to support, our highly valued PVI sector” which is “fundamental both to our current offer and to our further expansion of childcare”. It is regrettable that, so far, “active engagement” has appeared to be standard replies and empty promises. There certainly has been no action.
Fortunately Ms Don acknowledged that there “is work to do”. We just hope it is not too late.
Today we had a visit from Lisa at Childsmile. She reminded our children that they should brush their teeth twice a day for 2 minutes. She brought along some of her puppets and the children took turns to practise brushing the puppets’ teeth. Lisa also brought us new toothbrushes to use when we brush our teeth in nursery.
The ladies at Rock ‘n’ Reel were looking for some Hallowe’en decorations at their class this morning and our children were very keen to help out by sharing some of ours.
We took a walk round the woods today to see Pete and Steeley at work chainsaw carving in the woods.
Our children were very interested in their chainsaws and the noise they made and were trying to guess what Pete and Steeley were making. They told us they were making a story telling chair that we would be able to use next time we are in the woods. We are looking forward to trying it out!
We had a visit from Jackie of Tapsalteerie Theatre this week. Our children were enthralled as Jackie retold one of our favourite stories, Stick Man, accompanied by a variety of songs and actions.
The start of half term holidays is usually a happy time but today we were all sad as we said goodbye to Jen. Jen has been a stalwart of #TeamCVN and we have appreciated her quiet, calm nature and the love and care she has given every one of our children as well as the support she has given to her fellow staff members throughout her time with us. We said goodbye today with presents, cake and balloons. We know how much the children and staff will miss her but we wish her well in whatever she decides to do in this next stage of her journey. Good luck Jen, you will be missed 🍀
At CVN we are passionate about the benefits of learning outdoors in the natural environment and we spend as much time as we can in our local woodland.
We are continuing to develop our plans to move our service to the woodland and have recently revised our original business plan to facilitate this move. The revised plan sets out a phased approach which will better help us achieve our long term goal.
As a first step we plan to extend our current service by increasing the number of days we spend in the woods. We are currently looking to source funding to allow us to build a shelter which will support children’s experiences particularly in the extremes of weather conditions. The shelter will provide basic heat (likely by means of a wood burning stove) and we hope to have access to power via solar panels. The shelter will allow us to extend play and learning and support children to have positive experiences particularly in colder, wetter weather conditions.
As we develop our service above we will be gaining significant knowledge and experience which will feed into the larger project which we will pursue in the background.
So, while our longer term aim remains to create a bespoke facility in the woodland, we will be able to enhance children’s play and learning opportunities in the meantime. The aims of the larger building include to facilitate immersive and sustained engagement in the woodland environment which in turn will promote the development of environmental awareness, social responsibility and community pride. These aims remain equally appropriate for this initial phase of the project.
Like the larger nursery building, the shelter will provide a secure base for children and support their play and learning opportunities in the outdoors albeit on a smaller and potentially more rustic scale. The shelter will also be a community asset available for use by community groups and organisations supporting their use of the woods too.
We are working with Inch Architecture and local suppliers to establish the design and location of the shelter which we intend will complement the larger project.
Cambusbarron Village Nursery 