The programme, provisionally entitled The Secret Lives of Four-Year-Olds, will show pre-school children playing in a specially adapted pre-existing nursery in London.
Experts in neuroscience and child psychiatry will observe the children in the nursery and provide analysis of their behaviour.
RDF Television, the production company developing the programme, hopes the show will provide a deeper understanding of how a young child’s brain works and suggest ways in which behaviour at four might provide clues to how the child will grow up.
Producers are currently auditioning four-year-olds and their parents in London with the aim of filming a pilot in early November.
Past television programmes focusing on young children have not always met with critical acclaim. Channel 4’s Daddy Daycare, filmed in London Early Years Foundation’s Carlton Hill Nursery, received a mixed reaction when it was screened in 2012.
RDF Television has produced shows including Dickinson’s Real Deal for ITV1, Secret Millionaire for Channel 4 and Emergency Bikers for Channel 5. The company was founded in 1993 and has won the Rose D’Or of Montreux, an International Emmy and a number of BAFTAs and Royal Television Society awards.
