The past decade has seen a rapid increase in new early years provision, including Sure Start facilities and children's centres. This expansion has included new building projects as well as changes to existing buildings.
This period of growth has been paralleled by increasing interest in listening to young children's views. The Childcare Act 2006 is the latest legislation to emphasise taking into account children's perspectives. But can this include young children's experiences of the physical environment of their provision? Could these insights help to inform the complex task of building for young children?
Designing nurseries received great attention from the pioneers of the kindergarten movement. Even the name, kindergarten or 'children's garden', adopted by German educator Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), illustrates the close link between the environment and spaces for children. Froebel was keen that the early childhood environment reflected his views about children, childhood and learning. He paid careful attention to the creation of both indoor and outdoor spaces that could support play.
Italian educator Maria Montessori (1870-1952) created 'children's houses' which were designed with the scale and interests of young children in mind.
The extent to which young children's views and experiences have informed the design of early childhood environments remains an under-researched area.
June 2007 marks the end of the Living Spaces study, the first longitudinal initiative in the UK to involve young children in the designing and reviewing of early years indoor and outdoor provision. This three-year study, carried out by researchers at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, includes two case studies - a new nursery in a primary school, and a children's centre. (The report, Early Childhood Spaces: Involving young children and practitioners in the design process, will be published early next year by the Bernard van Leer Foundation in The Hague).
Research that takes place alongside real building projects is a complex task, but the project has demonstrated that there is a great deal to learn from young children about their provision.
The hope is that amid the rush to create new environments for young children and families, there will be increasing examples of policymakers and design professionals who are aware of the importance of 'tuning in' to both children and practitioners before and after a building is completed.
Here, we highlight some of the questions faced by the study and conclude with suggestions for involving young children in the design process or in reviewing existing provision.
- How can we find out what young children think about their existing nursery?
This question was the starting point for engaging young children in the first case study. Ashmole Primary School, in south London, had a nursery class that had been housed in a single-storey 'temporary' building for over 30 years.
It was decided to document the children's experiences of their existing space to see if they offered insights that might help to inform the final designs for the new nursery, to be situated within the main school building.
We chose the Mosaic approach as an appropriate set of methods for young children to explore their views and experiences and to use the material produced by the children to provoke discussions with older children, practitioners and architects. The Mosaic approach had been developed and used in two earlier research studies, which included involving children in redesigning a pre-school outdoor play space (for example, Clark and Moss, 2001; Clark and Moss, 2005).
There was an initial period of observation to see how individual children interacted with their peers and the environment. Next, a group of three- and four-year-olds used a camera to record what was 'important' to them in the nursery. These included images of favourite play equipment such as bicycles, of the nursery's pet hamster, of friends and of the outdoor play space. The children chose a selection of their own photographs to make into individual books about the nursery.
Nursery and reception-class children then led tours of the school in which the children were in charge of both the route and how the tour was documented. The purpose of the tour was to point out 'important' places and objects around the school.
The children began with photographs of the entrance gates and pathways in to school and the playgrounds. Those of indoor spaces included many references to the children themselves, such as their own photographs by their pegs and name cards.
The nursery used duck-shaped name cards as a form of registration, and many children chose to photograph their own duck. They paid close attention to the floor or ground, including images of 'scratchy' carpet and ramps for pushchairs. Others included images of the ceiling and sky.
Children met in pairs or groups of three to make maps of the school. The activity involved a great deal of talking as the children needed to decide which images to include. The photographs were supplemented by the children's own drawings and, on occasion, writing.
These maps provided a talking point for thinking about the existing nursery and school from the perspectives of the youngest members of the school community.
The maps were displayed first in the nursery, where they were accessible to parents, practitioners and children, and subsequently in the school hall as part of a whole-school consultation about the new building. They were then taken to the architects' offices where the maps stimulated discussions about designing for young children.
- How can we help young children think about a new nursery?
What tools might help children think about different possibilities for a new nursery? One of the difficulties of involving young children in a design project is how to help children think about possibilities for a new space. Young children's imaginations can be a rich source for discussion.
Two tools were used in this study to harness young children's imagination in this way: the use of stories and model making.
In the Attic by Hiawyn Oram, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, was chosen as a storybook to encourage thinking about what the new outdoor space could look like. In the story, a boy climbs an imaginary ladder into an attic where he finds a series of magical places. Children in the nursery discussed this story and drew their own designs for the playground.
Two variations of a model-making session were devised for the nursery and reception class. The nursery children took part in a block-play session working with large blocks and lengths of material of different textures. They made a new nursery, which included large windows, a grass roof and a large bed. Groups of reception-class children assembled small wooden bricks to make a 3D map of a new nursery, which included tall towers, a 'bumpy' roof and large playground.
Visits to different nurseries or unusual environments could be a further stimulus for young children to consider other possibilities. This strategy was used in Joined-Up Design for Schools (John and Frances Sorrell, 2005), which gave children the possibility of being clients and working with design consultants. For example, young people who were engaged in considering new designs for dinner halls went on a visit to popular restaurants to consider possibilities for seating.
Slide shows of different spaces were tried as an alternative to visits in this study. Children looked at images of a nursery well known for the importance given to design. In this case, the Diana Pre-school in Reggio Emilia, Italy, was chosen. The young children, however, found it difficult to link the photographs that were shown to their own nursery experiences.
- What can architects learn from involving young children in the design process?
Listening to young children can at times present a challenge to the expertise of adults, including researchers. An important underlying principle of the Mosaic approach has been regarding children as 'experts in their own lives' (Langsted, 1994). Children are seen as possessing unique insights into what it means to be themselves, in their particular environments with their own culture, abilities and needs. This is not intended, however, to replace adult expertise but to add new ways of understanding how young children view the world.
Architects involved in this study have reflected on the process. Jennifer Singer, formerly an architect with Greenhill Jenner and now working for RHWL Architects, writes, 'The structured consultation process has informed the process of design. It has allowed the architects to "see differently", to better understand spatial design from the perspective of the child through interaction with the researcher and children alike. It has allowed the architects to work with the children to understand not only what they "want" but, perhaps more importantly, the thought processes behind these ideas.'
Fran Bradshaw, an architect with Anne Thorne Architects Partnership, says, 'Listening to the children and watching them play can give the designer new and creative insights into a way of looking at the world which is quite different from that of an adult, and the spaces or building benefit enormously from this.'
Attention was given to specific design questions in the first case study as a result of the involvement of the group of young children, including:
- closer attention to the ceiling surfaces and the roof design. The new parts of the building include several skylights, patterned ceiling tiles and floating cloud structures with sparkling lights
- a cloakroom area with space for individual photographs for each child in recognition of the children's emphasis on identity
- alcoves and seating to provide 'cosy' spaces for small groups of children and adults to gather as a feature of the external design.
- How can young children be involved in reviewing a new building?
Once a new building or building project is completed, the difficult task begins of settling into a new space. An important stage in this process is a review of the finished building. Those who spend many hours in early childhood provision have important insights to offer the review process. However, it appears to still be rare for the insider perspectives of practitioners and young children to be considered.
This study has taken several of the tools from the Mosaic approach (including tours, map-making and discussion based on children's photographs) and applied them in the context of reviewing completed early childhood provision.
Young children in both case studies have led tours of the completed building projects, including indoor and outdoor spaces. The children have again chosen selected images to make maps of the completed provision. These have included some similar themes to the maps produced before the building work began, such as scale and perspective, identity and access to outdoor spaces. One four-year-old gave the following response during an interview:
RESEARCHER: Where is your favourite place inside?
CHILD: Outside
This led to a workshop using large cardboard boxes and chalk with groups of children to think about the design of outdoor play structures which would provide private as well as social spaces.
- But what about practitioners' and parents' views?
Adults as well as young children can be supported in reviewing a completed building by using the tools of the Mosaic approach. Practitioners in both case studies conducted tours which they recorded using their own photographs and made into maps of the completed buildings.
Displaying and reviewing the photographs led to a great deal of discussion. The activity created an opportunity for reflecting on experiences of working in a space and for revealing implicit knowledge about the new spaces.
This was of particular importance in the second case study, which was a review of a children's centre in Brent, north London. The Granville Plus Children's Centre combines an existing nursery school with a local Sure Start programme, together with new provision for children under three years old. Thus, the review of the children's centre involved bringing together distinct staff groups from a range of professional backgrounds, including social services, health and education.
The review was conducted first with the nursery school team and the Sure Start team, both staff groups and a group of parents conducting tours and constructing maps of the children's centre. A workshop was then devised to enable both teams to come together to talk about their own reviews of the building, using the maps as a focus, and to engage with emerging issues for future developments. As Prue Chiles comments, 'A classroom is not finished when it is finished, far from it; its life is just beginning' (2005: 112).
This finished beginning applies to classrooms but also to early childhood provision. Perhaps this is more the case for children's centres and other new configurations of provision for children where the building is part of a wider rethinking about different ways of working together.
- Are you starting on a building project?
There are opportunities as well as pitfalls in trying to involve young children in the design process. The first hurdle may often be the impossibly short time available for preparing a brief for a new building. This makes consultations with different stakeholders difficult, especially those with young children which require skill and time.
A good beginning may be to:
- start early to gather material about young children's views and experiences of their existing environment. This could begin as soon as discussions start about possible funding for new building or changes to provision. You could then collect and update the material, in the form of photographs, interviews and maps, as new children join.
- give practitioners time to reflect on their hopes for a new building. This needs to include practical aspects of the positive and negative features of the existing provision, as well as guidance to think about more theoretical issues concerning their views on children, childhood and pedagogy.
- enable parents to be part of early conversations about changes to provision, maybe starting from materials produced by young children about the existing environment.
- Are you staying put?
Despite the increase in the number of new building projects in the early years, most practitioners and children will not experience such a change. But gathering young children's perspectives on their early childhood provision can still be beneficial. The resulting insights might lead the way for small inexpensive changes that could make a difference to how young children experience indoor and outdoor spaces.
Possible starting points could be to involve a group of young children in:
- reviewing an area of an outdoor play space which may be underused or causing problems
- reviewing a specific time of day, for example breakfast or lunchtimes
- documenting important places in the nursery in the final weeks before children leave to start school. This information may be added to their profile and support their transition to school.
Alison Clark is a research officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, part of the Institute of Education of the University of London.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
- Chiles, P (2005) 'The classroom as an evolving landscape', in Dudek, M (ed) (2005) Children's Spaces. Oxford: Architectural Press
- Clark, A and Moss, P (2001) Listening to Young Children: The Mosaic approach. London: National Children's Bureau
- Clark, A and Moss, P (2005) Spaces to Play: More listening to young children using the Mosaic approach. London: National Children's Bureau
- Dudek, M (2001) Building for young children. London: National Early Years Network
- Langsted, O (1994) 'Looking at quality from the child's perspective', in Moss, P and Pence, A (eds) Valuing Quality in Early Childhood Services: New approaches to defining quality. London: Paul Chapman. pp28-42
- Sorrell, J and F (2005) Joined- Up Design for Schools. London: Merrell
- Sure Start (2004) Building for Sure Start: Design and client guide: integrated provision for under-fives. London: DfES/CABE
- 'All about ... Consulting with children' (Nursery World, 5 July 2001).
