Item 11 - Early Learning and Childcare Update
West Dunbartonshire Council · 16 September 2026
Back to Educational Services Committee — 16 September 2026 and its agenda
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WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL Report by Chief Education Officer Educational Services Committee: Wednesday 16 September 2026 _______________________________________________________________ Subject: Early Learning and Childcare Update 1. Purpose 1.1 This report provides progress made to provide high quality Early Learning and Childcare in West Dunbartonshire Council. 2. Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that Committee notes: (i) progress to deliver high quality Early Learning and Childcare. 3. Background 3.1 Early Learning and Childcare Within Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) we deliver, across all our settings, up to 1140 hours to eligible 2 year olds, and children aged from 3 to those not yet attending primary school. Places for children under the age of 2 are available in our partner settings and in some of our council run settings. These places support our eligible and vulnerable children and working families who require access to childcare. We also provide places with some childminders across the local authority. Overall children are very well supported, provided with exciting learning opportunities, and are nurtured by well trained staff. 3.2 Training We continue to offer a wide range of training to all our ELC providers through our Professional Learning Framework and our framework for this session aims to support the actions identified in our delivery plan, staff development needs and to support all children. ITEM 11
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4. Main Issues 4.1 Children’s Progress Attendance continues to be robustly monitored on a monthly basis within our early years settings and training to staff has been provided to develop a more consistent approach. The average rolling attendance across West Dunbartonshire Council settings for August to June 2026 was 85.69% which is slightly lower than last year. This captures the attendance data for all children attending our ELC LA settings, however, it should be noted that the average attendance for our pre school children this session was 90.58%. Working together with settings to improve attendance will remain a key focus for our delivery plan this session. 4.2 Assessment Data – Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels Assessment data gathered in June 2026 shows that children continue to make good progress in literacy and numeracy outcome measures. Within our delivery plan, to support further with literacy and numeracy, we will continue to focus on improving attainment and will work closely with individual settings to provide specific training where required. This session, for the third year we gathered predictions on whether children in their pre-school year are on track to achieve the early level by the end of Primary 1. This data is outlined below and shows a positive increase in all areas to the data gathered in previous sessions. June 2024 June 2025 June 2026 % Difference Reading 80 85 87 +2 Writing 82 84 88 +4 Talking & Listening 85 87 91 +4 Numeracy 87 90 91 +1 4.3 National Early Language and Communication As mentioned in our March 2026 committee report, the National Early Language and Communication multi agency group was established by Scottish Government to reduce the barriers of language and communication difficulties in young children. Last session we identified a nursery to act as a pilot for this work, which included upskilling staff, increasing parental engagement and implementing a developmental tracker with children aged from 0-3 to support their stages of development and identify next steps in learning. This session we will further rollout this work across all of our 0-3 settings, both Local Authority and Partner settings. This work will support all our children across our 0-3 settings in developing better language and communication skills.
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4.4 Communication Rich Environments Last session we worked in partnership with our Educational Psychology colleagues to create a new framework, entitled ‘Communication Rich Environments’ (CORE) which is intended to further support settings in promoting inclusive practice, upskill staff and to provide support and guidance to all families, with the aim to improve children’s engagement and language and communication skills. In the year ahead, the work is also being supported by Speech and Language Therapy colleagues as we together start to pilot the framework across some of our settings with the intention of further refinement and rollout the following year. 4.5 Thrive at Five Our partnership with Thrive at Five is becoming more established. The initial settings that will be involved in the first phase of this work have been identified and notified. Their views will be gathered as part of the discovery phase and we are exploring some exciting work to bring in the voices of children aged 0-5. Thrive at Five are currently recruiting to their Lead officer roles for parental engagement, early years education, health and local communications. Once post-holders are appointed they will work closely with colleagues in the Council, HSCP, other local charities and families to develop and implement plans that address the priority issues identified in the Discovery phase. We expect to share more detailed information about these work-streams in our next update to education committee. 4.6 National Standard At present all of our settings, with the exception of one setting, for one Quality Indicator, have grades of good or above with the Care Inspectorate and are meeting the requirements of the National Standard. All settings are supported in a wide range of ways to ensure that they are able to sustain and improve their Care Inspectorate grades or those attained when inspected by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education. 5 People Implications 5.1 Support is provided for Early Learning and Childcare staff teams and leaders to enable effective delivery of the high quality ELC and the expectations of the statutory offer of 1140 hours for eligible 2 year olds and 3 year olds to pre school aged children. 5.2 Since 2021, we have supported 35 Modern Apprentices. 23 have completed their training, achieving a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) Level 3 within our Early Learning and Childcare settings and have been supported into employment with the council. At present three Modern Apprentices are working towards their qualification and two more were recruited and began at the start of term. We will also look to recruit one more for August 2026.
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We also linked in with West College Scotland to offer interviews to newly qualified early learning and childcare practitioners and received five applications for our supply posts. All five who applied were successful at interview and will be added to our supply register as soon as their recruitment checks are completed. Ten members of staff working in ELC settings across the authority are currently working on their SVQ Level 2. We have received very positive feedback about this cohort from the college with all ten on track to gain this qualification by the summer. This group contains three upskillers, namely early years lunchtime assistants who with this qualification, could seek employment as a learning assistant and also seven learning assistants gaining the correct qualification to meet their SSSC conditions. We also have three members of staff, one Principal Officer and two Lead Officers in the final year of their Bachelor of Arts in Childhood Practice. 6. Financial and Procurement Implications 6.1 There are no financial or procurement implications arising from this report. 7. Risk Analysis 7.1 The Key Risks: • Maintaining high quality Early Learning and Childcare at all funded providers to ensure that they meet the National Standard Criteria. • Failure to deliver 1140 hours curriculum by confident, well trained Early Learning and Childcare staff teams. • Evaluations of good for environment by Care Inspectorate are at risk if Early Learning and Childcare building assets are not maintained. 8. Equalities Impact Assessment 8.1 There was no requirement to undertake another Equalities Impact Assessment for the purposes of this report as it is providing an update for Committee. 9. Consultation 9.1 Regular consultation with stakeholders including parents and carers, Early Learning and Childcare staff, Unions, Council partners and partner Early Learning and Childcare providers continues through the various Council fora and regular meetings.
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9.2 Legal Services and the Section 95 Officer have been consulted in relation to the content of this report. 10. Strategic Assessment 10.1 This report reflects the Council’s aspiration to have resilient and thriving communities, a strong and flourishing economy and a council that is inclusive and adaptive. These are some of the strategic priorities for 2022-2027. Gillian Hamilton Chief Education Officer 26 August 2026 ___________________________________________________________________ Person to Contact: Alison Bowers, Senior Education Officer, Education, Learning and Attainment Telephone No: 07813 534420 Email: alison.bowers@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Background Papers: none Wards Affected: All
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