Scotland’s early years Curriculum for Excellence: What do children learn?

The Curriculum for Excellence is the national curriculum for 3 – 18-year-olds in Scotland.

In 2008, the Scottish Government launched The Early Years Framework. Working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and various partners, this framework aimed to support and empower children and their families. Its vision was to provide a good start in each child’s life that would lead to better outcomes for them in the future.

A goal of The Early Years Framework was to implement The Curriculum for Excellence policy, which had been being worked on since 2003. The Scottish Government and partners successfully achieved this in 2010 -2011 and nurseries and schools throughout Scotland now follow its guidance.

What are the development outcomes of The Curriculum for Excellence?

The policy aims to guide childcare settings to build skills that will enable all children to become:

• Successful learners
• Confident individuals
• Responsible citizens
• Effective contributors

In order to achieve this, curriculum planning includes:

• Opportunities for personal achievement
• Interdisciplinary learning
• Ethos and life of the pre-school or nursery as a community
• Curriculum areas and subjects

Children under three

In 2010, Learning and Teaching Scotland and partners published Pre-Birth to Three – Positive Outcomes for Scotland’s Children and Families. This revision of an earlier document puts emphasis on play as a means of learning and developing and recognises that children at this age learn a lot through imitation and influence. Its key principles are:

• Rights – Treating each child as an individual and listening to their opinions and choices.
• Relationships – Building positive and trusting relationships with the children in their care.
• Responsive care – Engaging with and supporting each child in a sensitive and caring way.
• Respect – Showing genuine interest in each child so that they feel valued and learn to treat others in the same way.

What will my child’s early years curriculum look like?

Each nursery will plan a different timetable of activities that are designed to support each child to build their skills and meet their developmental goals. Activities are planned around the resources and space that the nursery has, such as play equipment, indoor and outdoor space and the nursery’s accessibility to local amenities.

Nurseries such as Montessori, Steiner or Forest Schools will take a different approach. They may also follow other guidance such as ‘Realising the Ambition: Being Me’ or ‘How Good is Our Early Learning and Childcare’.

Pre-birth to 3 years old

Going to nursery is usually the first time a child will be away from their parent or guardians. The Pre-Birth to Three guidance discusses the importance of attachments at this age. Many nurseries assign each child a ‘key person’, a member of staff who will watch over that child, build a trusting relationship with them and their parents, and monitor their progress and wellbeing.

Eating and sleeping will be key components in your child’s daily routine at nursery at this age. It is also when they will begin to crawl, walk, talk and explore the world around them. The Pre-Birth to Three guidance puts emphasis on learning through play. This could include a wide variety of activities such as:

• Baby gym or toddler obstacle course
• Making music and dancing
• Learning nursery rhymes
• Exploring textures
• Exploring the world around them looking at objects and how they work
• Art, messy play, colouring and making things
• Story time and looking at picture books
• Chunky puzzles and building blocks
• Role play and using imagination with  a toy kitchen, Wendy house or dressing up
• Practising balance and coordination with toys like scooters and balls
• Learning about nature and wildlife
• Trips to educational amenities like museums, farms and gardens.

3-5 years old

At this age, children are developing the skills they will use when they move on to school. The Curriculum for Excellence promotes active play, with children being involved in fun learning activities as the best way to understand what is being taught.

The Curriculum for Excellence’s curriculum areas are:

Expressive arts

Children learn about colour, texture and using art to express the way they feel or what they can imagine. This could be through painting, drawing, making things, music and dance. Colouring can teach hand-eye coordination and crafts such as making paper dolls with split-pin limbs help children to explore how materials work together.

Health and wellbeing

Children are enabled to improve their fitness, balance and coordination with active games and opportunities for free play outdoors and on climbing frames. They can also learn about healthy eating and healthy living, sometimes through play-cooking or even tending to the nursery’s vegetable patch. For good mental health, they can learn words to help them explain how they are feeling.

Mathematics and numeracy

Children practise counting through songs and games. They can learn how to draw numbers, do basic sums using objects to help them understand and be able to identify and draw shapes.

Language and literacy

Children learn to speak using tenses so that they can say if something happens in the past, present or future and some other basic grammar. They learn about syllables and rhyming through songs and learn to recite the alphabet song. They trace letters and learn to write their name and even other small words freehand.

Religious and moral education

Children learn about different religions and cultures throughout the world with stories, pictures and objects. The nursery might celebrate the various religious festivals throughout the year, particularly if one of the children is celebrating it with their family, and the children might do arts and crafts or perform plays for parents. Throughout all their activities at nursery, children will learn to share, take turns, apologise when they have upset somebody and to respect other people.

Science

Children can do scientific experiments to explore how things work and why. This could be learning about what floats or sinks in water, learning about smell, taste and the human body.

Social studies

Learning about different people, times and places. This could include historical dress up and role play, talking about how people in Scotland used to live, stories or show and tell to learn about other children in their group.

Technology

Basic computer skills and activities such as role-playing how to use a telephone with toy phones.