Nursery World - Research Nurseries: Practitioner collaboration at BEYA helps to move the sector forward

In the penultimate instalment of this series, Gemma Goldenberg hears about grassroots innovations from one nursery federation, such as an assessment tool that is now used by more than 100 settings across the world

Another BEYA project has been the development of the ‘progression in play’ approach, which focuses on the importance of children’s play

Barnet Early Years Alliance (BEYA) is comprised of three Outstanding nursery schools and a Children's Centre, serving just under 500 children. The north London settings use a play-based, open-ended approach referred to by staff as ‘places of possibility’ where the aim is for staff and children to learn from each other. While not research-led in the same sense as some of the other nurseries in this series, the federation shows how practitioner research and collaboration at the grassroots level can lead to leaps forward in practice. This is done through a group called ‘Leaders of Early Learning’, formed by BEYA which settings in Barnet have been invited to join. The group meet several times a year.

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