Learning & Development: Early Education - Over time

Childcare for working mothers, two-year-olds in schools, questions about the wisdom of cutting Government expenditure on the early years in times of austerity and debates about teaching qualifications and ratios – all these topics are current policy issues. Yet all were up for debate when Nursery World’s first issue rolled off the presses 90 years ago.

It’s a sobering thought that we’re still debating similar issues more than a century after the establishment of the first nursery school in England, despite the huge – almost unimaginable – changes in nursery education over the past century.

Fellow nonagenarian Early Education is joining Nursery World’scelebration with a reminder of how, and why, we have spent the past 90-plus years campaigning on issues like these, and bringing together practitioners for ‘exchange of experience and consideration of common problems’ (as the invitation to our first conference put it). Through our campaigns, we speak out for the cause of high-quality nursery education, with an emphasis on its role in giving all children an equal start in life. But, equally importantly, we need to keep promoting conversations – between practitioners, parents and politicians – to share knowledge and expertise, and keep the debates moving forward.