Editor's view

Nursery World's Outdoor Challenge, run with Learning Through Landscapes, has become an incredibly popular annual event. This week we launch the 2006 competition, with a fantastic 9,000 worth of prizes including a tailor-made shade sail from Keep it Kool, lots of great NES Arnold equipment, advice from LTL and more. Awareness of how important good outdoor provision is for young children is growing, and practitioners cite lack of suitable opportunities as one of the biggest challenges in meeting curriculum objectives. We hope our competition will highlight the need to support settings in improving their facilities and practice, and for theGovernment to regulate to make access to good outdoor play mandatory for all children. Entering the Outdoor Challenge will help your setting to reflect on current provision, identify ideas for development, and gain the motivation to put them into practice - and you could be a winner! We've also got several new features starting this week. Many practitioners still feel a lack of confidence about working with babies and toddlers, so Jennie Lindon's new series on the applying the principles of the English and Scottish birth-to-threes guidance should be invaluable. Plus, Jenny Mosely, renowned for her circle time work, tackles child behaviour problems, and Andrew Trythall of Sir Robert Hitcham's School has great ICT ideas.