Primary 1 start

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At a time when children’s social worlds have changed dramatically getting Primary 1 start right is incredibly important for family confidence, for children’s wellbeing and happiness and for nurseries and schools. At the very least nursery leavers need to reconnect with their ELC setting- to ensure positive memories, retrieve status as a creative, competent and engaged early learner who is used to time away from home, and to see their friends and nursery adults again. These networks are essential so children can make a confident transition to school.
It is essential that children know who their Primary 1 teacher will be and have met their new teacher ahead of school start. This is an opportunity to treat the CfE Early Level as one phase - for the first term staffing in P1 should be matched with nursery staffing ratios. This will support everyone well to achieve a good move to school.
1) reconnect with current stage
2) create transitions networks
3) staff every P1 with a teacher and an early years graduate practitioner
4) Scottish Government to support Local Councils to guarantee who the P1 teacher in every school will be now- not leaving children and families worried and uncertain - this is the highest priority in the current climate

Why the contribution is important

This combination of reconnection to ELC, meeting the P1 teacher and appropriate staff/ child ratios are important to ensure well being for children and families. Relationships have been disrupted and the assumptions we might normally make about children settling well to school or resettling into what may be a very changed ELC environment need to be addressed. There have been suggestions that children who have missed months of ELC should be funded for a further year, which might in turn reduce opportunities for new nursery entrants- would it not make much more sense to make sure P1 is a continuous play- based experience that compensates for the loss of time in nursery by being set up like good nursery with indoor and outdoor space, and no rush to more formalised approaches. We must staff the whole early level with age appropriate ratios. The ELC expansion cannot be rushed but recruitment for P1 would mean we can ensure the continuing development of our workforce to everyone’s advantage.

by AWAD2020 on May 06, 2020 at 11:39PM

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