Scottish ministers are looking to Norway to learn lessons about how to improve the education system for the nation's youngest children.

Scottish ministers are looking to Norway to learn lessons about how to improve the education system for the nation's youngest children.

Adam Ingram, the Children's Minister, who has just returned from a fact- finding trip to the Scandinavian country, said there was much Scotland could learn from Norway.

Examples include the democratic rights of children from nursery upwards to influence how and what they are taught, the greater use of nature in lessons with outdoor kindergartens, and the focus on learning through play rather than formal lessons.

Schools in Norway are required to develop their own local version of the national curriculum, with a strong emphasis on history and culture and the school's role within its community.

The system also incorporates "upbringing plans" which ensure that all services that impact on children work together, including schools, kindergartens, sport and leisure activities, midwives and health visitors, child welfare services, libraries, and mental health and public health services.

Mr Ingram said: "It was interesting to see how another society approaches the nurturing of its young children and the impact of that in later life. There is a lot we can learn from Norway - a country with a similar population size to Scotland - about the success of its child-centred approach and its emphasis on investment in young people."

Although the number of people in Norway and Scotland is broadly similar, with populations of 4.6 million and 5.1 million respectively, there are marked contrasts between the two in terms of the experiences of families.

According to the United Nation's children's organisation, Unicef, Norway is in the top 10 of 21 industrialised countries for overall child wellbeing, while the UK is at the bottom of the league.

Norway spends 7.6% of its GDP on education, compared to only 6.2% in Scotland, while Norwegian parents pay just 30% of their childcare costs compared to 60% in Scotland. The fact-finding visit mirrors moves already made in Scotland to learn from examples of Scandinavian countries, where formal schooling starts much later, but standards of reading and writing are higher than in the UK.

In Scotland, where there is only one intake a year, most children start primary one between the ages of four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half, irrespective of their emotional or social development.

However, in Denmark, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, children do not start primary school until the age of six, while elsewhere in Scandinavia it is seven. Instead, they attend nurseries, where the emphasis is on learning through play.

The previous Scottish Executive recognised this last year by calling for much greater use of play-based learning in the early years of primary school.

The current government is also keen to pursue elements of the Scandinavian model after the SNP made the issue of developing the early years a key part of its election manifesto. Although the party has no plans to raise the school age, its long-term goal is to deliver universal integrated early education and care services, similar to the Scandinavian model, giving every family access to affordable, high-quality childcare.

In March, a policy document published by the Scottish Government and local authority body Cosla called for greater use of so-called "early intervention" to create a fairer society.

First Minister Alex Salmond said the new focus on providing earlier help to break the cycle of inequality, deprivation and ill-health would bring to an end the current culture of "crisis management".