Williamsburgh Early Learning and Childcare Class is located in the east end of Paisley. The nursery is registered for 64 children aged three to when they start primary school. There are currently 80 children on the school roll. Children access their 1140 hours in a wide variety of attendance patterns between 8 am and 6 pm each day. The nursery offers provision for 50 weeks each year. The setting serves a socially diverse catchment area, with 41% of children living within Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) deciles one and two.

The improvement issue

Practitioners were using floor books to document children’s learning. Staff referred to the floor books to support planning next steps in children’s learning. However, senior leaders and practitioners identified there was a lack of a shared understanding of the purpose of floor books amongst the staff team. This led to inconsistency in practitioners' approaches to using floor books. Floor books would detail the experience rather than the process of rich play and the depth of learning that comes from this. This in turn, impacted on practitioners’ planning of appropriate next steps for children.

What Williamsburgh Primary did

Senior leaders led moderation exercises with the whole staff team. These involved practitioners reviewing current approaches staff were using to record within the floor books. The team identified strengths and areas for development. They agreed the content and expectations for recording within the floor books. Senior leaders worked with the staff team to develop a pro forma, for detailing what was to be included in floor books. This was used to ensure a consistent approach to floor book planning within the different areas of the nursey.

Practitioners have developed a range of floor books for each nursery play space. These are used to explore the shared thinking and document the process of play and the learning that comes from that. Staff link the appropriate Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes to the learning experience. Staff use the floor books to record children's reflections about their learning. They engage the children in daily discussions about their learning. The discussions support children to take responsibility for their learning journey. Children are encouraged to mark-make and add their ideas to the planning process. Their voice is evident throughout the floor books with their spoken words, their drawings, their early writing and photographs of their learning.

Staff were also focussing on embedding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) within the practice. They documented children’s rights across the curriculum in the floor books. This supported children in developing their understanding of the relevance of the rights and the impact they have on their wellbeing.

Staff share their floor books with the wider team at planning meetings. This allows the team to highlight improvements in the quality of content within their floor books. They also share with each other their interesting and creative ways to involve children in recording their learning journey.

Senior leaders regularly monitor the content of each floor book to identify any staff training needs. Each staff member has an individual professional dialogue session with a senior leader to discuss their personal identified strengths and identify any next steps. Senior leaders provided training and support to meet identified needs.

As confidence within the staff team grew, web planning organisers were introduced to identify the threads of thinking and highlight connections in children’s learning. Senior leaders took on a mentoring role to build confidence within the staff team. They supported staff to identify the connections in the learning and where individual and collective evidence would be best placed in the organiser. For example, significant learning of an individual child was shared on their online profile and collective learning and interest were recorded in a floor book.

Staff members new to the setting receive training and mentoring to support them in developing their floor book practice.

What the sustained impact has been

All floor books effectively document in more detail children’s collective interests, curiosities, and sense of wonder of their world, through threads of learning. They detail the connections in children’s thinking, ideas and learning. The floor books illustrate successfully how children’s thinking and ideas progress over time. They highlight how children move from one idea to another. They evidence positively the ways in which practitioners support and deepen children’s thinking, through effective questioning and sustained shared thinking. Children are now more confident in contributing to the floor books. They enjoy looking at them and through looking recall prior learning experiences, which adds depth to their learning journey.

Through ongoing monitoring processes, staff are evidencing children’s experiences and outcomes over time, as well as identifying the principles of curriculum design. Children’s rights are now evident within the floor books. Children are evaluating their learning with increasing confidence. This is a positive step forward in the setting’s commitment to embedding the rights of the child in all aspects of their practice.