Enabling Environments: NW Nursery of the Year - Inspired!

Persephone the pig is wandering past the outdoor atelier table with streaks of green and blue paint on her back, followed by two girls in fluorescent jackets who have volunteered to be on ‘poop duty’. The chickens are under scrutiny from a group of children interested in investigating how they react to different types of music – from rock to jazz – and the ducks are immortalised in a book after unwittingly inspiring a digital photography project on perspective (see below).

It’s easy to see that creativity is embedded in practice at Little Barn Owls Nursery and Farm School – based on a working farm in Horsham, West Sussex – enabling the children to be researchers of their world. Staff at the 80-place award-winning nursery – claiming both the Enabling Environments and Nursery of the Year top spots in 2015’s Nursery World Awards – focus on enquiry-based learning and take a pedagogical approach inspired by Reggio Emilia. Owner Hayley Peacock was ‘overwhelmed by the phenomenal practice’ she witnessed there during a study trip in 2012.

‘Children are deeply motivated and are drawn to things that fascinate them. We’d be mad to construct and impose other activities that they are not so motivated about,’ she says. ‘The potential of children is phenomenal. It is all about the way we construct contexts for them and create well-designed provocations.’

On her return, she replaced the plastic toys in her nursery with open-ended resources attractively displayed by the practitioners, known as ‘educators’, which Ms Peacock believes best describes their role. ‘They educate children by creating the context to build their own learning pathways,’ she explains. ‘Rather than teach or impart their knowledge, they are inspirators, listeners and resources.’

Children benefit from adult:child ratios at least 20 per cent above the required minimum, including the support of two full-time artists-in-residence – atelieristas – and one part-timer whose technical skills help children’s theories come to life. Along with the outdoor atelier table, stocked with loose parts, including drain pipes and tyres, there is a digital atelier and a large purpose-built atelier. Children also participate in farm school and forest school, with the nursery’s handyman currently constructing a fire pit in the grounds.

Such provision doesn’t come cheap, with fees at £64 a day for all ages. ‘We have a premium service and charge accordingly but we’re not actually the most expensive nursery in the area,’ says Ms Peacock. ‘We could make a lot more profit but want to deliver something meaningful, and that means high staff ratios, two-hour weekly reflection meetings and employing committed people who adhere to our values and work really hard.’

PURPOSEFUL AND MEANINGFUL

An appreciation of the aesthetic is all around. Rebecca Kilshaw, one of two pedagogical co-ordinators, says, ‘We ensure the environment looks inspiring, beautiful, purposeful and meaningful for the children. A lot of thought and time in the evenings and weekends goes into maintaining the environment and there is a high expectation of all educators.’

Fresh flowers are hung in bottles around the outside decking and are also inside on tables surrounded by low shelving with paints and pencils carefully grouped in jars according to shade. A role-play shop includes real vegetables – one girl is engrossed with peeling back the layers on leeks – pots of herbs and money.

Children volunteer to lay the tables for lunchtime and put out jars of fresh flowers along with some of the raw components of the day’s meal (avoiding raw meat), which is cooked on the premises and served on ceramic plates with proper cutlery. Classical music plays quietly in the background.

‘We believe children have hundreds of ways of expressing themselves, and providing an inspiring environment acts as their “third teacher”,’ says Ms Peacock.

Visitors attending the professional development days operated by the nursery’s Training School often express surprise that the environment can remain so calm and well-ordered. ‘It did take time but everyone is used to it now,’ says pedagogical co-ordinator Charlotte Middleton. ‘Having it neat and accessible enables children to make choices, right down to exactly what shade of pencil they’d like to use.’

Educators are well-acquainted with recycling centres – travelling to Hackney in London and Oxford for specific items, ranging from disused circuit boards to cardboard reels. There are wicker baskets filled with bottle tops, wooden curtain rings, shells and glass beads for the children to explore. Parents are also asked to donate items, most recently spare weaving materials. Children have been investigating techniques to connect two metal kitchen drainers and have become interested in weaving materials through them and making wire objects. There are thoughts of acting on this interest and constructing a collaborative sculpture.

‘Our approach aims to extend beyond following children’s interests,’ says Ms Peacock. ‘Rather, we consider it our role to vigorously follow and research children’s knowledge, competencies and strategies for learning contextualised within a subject matter that deeply interests them.’

SPACE AND RESOURCES

Focused sessions are held in the digital and main atelier alongside free-flow activities. The main atelier is used principally by the oldest children, roughly four at a time, and provides the space and resources for uninterrupted time to devote to projects or enquiries. There is a wealth of resources, from more loose parts to different sizes of paper, and art materials from pencils to chalks and pastels.

In the digital atelier, children explore with equipment such as a light box (also located in many other areas of the nursery, including the baby room), scanner, digital camera, overhead projector with acetate and pens and digital projectors, as well as using the Mac computer.

‘It’s not about playing games on an iPad but using the digital space in an advanced, creative way,’ says Ms Middleton. ‘Children can spend ages with their hand on the scanner watching the movement and transformation of their body. It’s also a key space for collaborative learning.’

As if on cue, two children enter the room and are drawn to the projector. They laugh as they experiment with perspective moving towards and away from the light to make their shadows bigger and smaller.

A DUCK TEST

‘What is a landscape?’ is a seemingly simple question provoked by looking at Monet paintings, but it sparked a project with two- to four-year-olds collaborating to explore different landscapes, experiment with digital photography and, ultimately, make themselves as small as a duck.

Educators created a provocation space with a Monet book, photos of landscapes and loose parts – from stones and pine cones to play figures and fabric – which inspired the children to build landscapes throughout the nursery and at home.

‘We were told of children drawing landscapes at the kitchen table as well as pointing out landscapes from the car on days out with their families,’ says Ms Peacock.

The children used digital cameras to document their creations, many of which began to incorporate characters. Some children were then invited into the atelier to look at landscapes projected onto the wall and to add their characters to this immersive digital world. ‘We observed a continuous interplay between fantasy and reality – giants in villages, monsters in the woods, and polar bears in snowy landscapes,’ says Ms Peacock.

Children used acetate and fine liners to draw characters and buildings to add to their landscape photos. When the children drew these approximately the same size, regardless of where they were to be positioned, educators began to reflect on children’s understanding of perspective.

Pedagogical co-ordinator Charlotte Middleton proposed that if toy houses could appear to be larger in photos than in reality, then perhaps the children could too. She then demonstrated how to take photos using a tripod and challenged three budding photographers to take photographs in which they appeared bigger than staff members. As a result, the camera and tripod were set up.

A key moment was when the nursery’s ducks walked into the foreground of a photograph of some children. A three-year-old saw this during reflection time and exclaimed, ‘You can be as small as a duck!’

Children started to write instructions and represent graphically how to make themselves different sizes with a camera. A provocation space was provided with various forms of instructions including flat-pack furniture diagrams, Lego instruction booklets and appliance manuals.

Small groups reviewed the different ways they had created instructions – mind maps, drawing and videos on tablet computers. A four-year-old suggested they make a poster demonstrating ‘how to make yourself as small as a duck’, which was accepted enthusiastically.

Children first experimented with media such as straws to perfect how to draw a tripod – initially, it was represented with three straight parallel legs. A core group of four poster makers, all girls, emerged, but they invited other children to help draw ducks.

When the design was complete, atelierista Catherine Grimaldi scanned the children’s drawings in Photoshop and the group then instructed her where to place them to construct the poster.

‘We found the children’s ability to understand concepts such as the effects of changing perspectives through the camera lens highly exciting and often surprising,’ says Ms Peacock.

‘However, most joyful was being part of developing their motivation to research further and seeing how connected they felt to the project.’

MORE INFORMATION

Landscapes (…or how to make yourself as small as a duck): A project researching perception and perspective in digital photography by children aged 2-4 years at Little Barn Owls Nursery and Farm School by Charlotte Middleton and Hayley Peacock. To order a copy, email: info@littlebarnowls.co.uk

The nursery operates a Training Schoolthat offers professional development opportunities from visit days to bespoke consultancy. Visit: www.littlebarnowls.co.uk

For more on last year’s Nursery World Award winners and details of how to enterthis year’s competition, visit: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/awards

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