Our son, Somhairle, goes to the Stornoway Childcare Centre. He absolutely loves his time there, and we could not be happier with the setting and staff.

“I grew up surrounded by Gaelic and my primary education, although not officially Gaelic Medium, had a big emphasis on Gaelic language and culture and was very bilingual. Over the years, I’d lost a lot of my own ability and confidence with the language through lack of practice but, when we had Somhairle, that was the perfect prompt to do something about it, so I started speaking Gaelic at home. Somhairle’s father is a keen Gaelic learner and also speaks to him in Gaelic.

“We felt this was a really important thing to do to enable Somhairle to connect with the language and culture from an early age. The Stornoway Childcare Centre could not have been more supportive and are very proactive with Gaelic projects and using the language with the children which we try and support in any way that we can as a family.

“Somhairle is not quite three yet, but his language skills are developing in a very bilingual way. His Gaelic and English vocabulary is expanding rapidly and it is clear that he understands both and is naturally translating between the two languages. Stornoway Childcare Centre has played a huge role in supporting Somhairle’s bilingual development and is doing great work to encourage and support children and families to speak Gaelic.  We can't thank them enough for the great work that they do!”