How do you bring out the best in boys? This was a question that preoccupied Windham Nursery School last year, when 75 per cent of its intake was male. Without wishing to enforce gender stereotypes or exclude girls, Windham drew up a thoughtful and extremely effective strategy.
Deputy head Cherry Baker says, 'While individual children may be more or less masculine or feminine in behaviour, we recognised that having a large group of boys would change the dynamics of the nursery. Based on our experience and knowledge of child development, we knew there were specific areas we needed to look at to bring out the best in them.'
This included providing plenty of opportunities and space for outdoor physical movement and activity and maximising resources for hands-on investigations that would be likely to interest boys.
'We also recognised the fact that boys generally find it more difficult to acquire the sedentary skills of reading and writing,' says Ms Baker.
'So, we focused on finding ways to interest them in literacy and develop skills such as movement control and beat competency.'
Happily for Windham, its recently redesigned nursery space has allowed it to fulfil its potential when it comes to tailoring activities to children. Its airy, open-plan layout boasts highquality equipment and furniture.
Although the outside area is not very large, practitioners can be creative with ideas, such as using the large reception area for parachute games.
Windham Nursery School is currently the only local authority nursery school in the affluent London borough of Richmond-Upon-Thames, and in 1999 was awarded the status of Early Excellence Centre by the DfES. Since then it has achieved generous funding to revamp its premises and boost its services under the banner of Windham u a Partnership for Children.
Ms Baker says, 'We were selected on the basis of the model we provided for high-quality nursery education, multi-agency work and our focus on special educational needs. It was a great testimony to all the hard work that had been going on here.'
Before the funding, Windham was operating out of two separate buildings which dated back to the 1940s. As part of the redesign it was decided to join the two buildings together and early years architect Mark Dudek was brought in to mastermind it.
At child level
The result is an imaginative and practical use of space in which everything has been brought down to child level.
A priority has been to ensure that furniture and designated play areas are flexible and can easily be changed.
Themes tend to be carried out on a big scale, so that a project to incorporate the castle corner into the story of Jack and the beanstalk, for example, extends with decorations made by the children throughout the nursery area.
The staff also wanted this concept to be carried through to the nursery's outdoor area. 'We decided we wanted to get away from fixed climbing apparatus and now have equipment that can be moved around or which the children can construct themselves,' says Ms Baker.
'We also have kept some areas of the garden just as earth and grass so that the children can climb into them and use them as they see fit.'
While Windham was able to take practical steps to adapt its environment to boys' preferred activities, it found many girls were keen to access them as well.
'A large, clear carpet area with flexible boundaries was created by positioning storage units or using masking tape to make spaces for block building, railway set-ups, roadways, construction and role play on a big scale,' says Ms Baker. 'Setting up the railway is something which has become very popular with girls.
'Tables for sitting were kept to a minimum, with many activities designed to be enjoyed standing, kneeling or on the floor,' she adds.
'Our choice of small tables meant that they could be used in many different ways, for example, to create a large square surface for painting on big sheets of paper one day or a long counter for self-service junk modelling the next.'
Hands-on investigative activities that really interested boys included growing beans, keeping tadpoles and successfully raising caterpillars to butterflies and incubating eggs to chicks.
The nursery also dismantled an old video recorder, which the children could investigate with real screwdrivers, pliers and magnets. This has now become a permanent fixture.
Gender imbalance
A gender imbalance that was slightly harder to address was the lack of male practitioners on the staff. The team is exclusively female and most have worked for the nursery for years.
However, as Ms Baker explains, Windham benefited from the presence of a male teaching student during the year. He taught for one day a week and then for a block of six weeks in the summer.
'He provided a subtly different approach to many activities compared to our female staff, a different voice for storytelling and added his own interests to our nursery resources.'
She adds, 'We have numerous parents and visitors to the nursery and deliberately seek out as many men as possible in a variety of roles. We have had fathers coming in to talk to the children who have jobs including singer and musician, taxi cab driver, a zoologist and a foreman from some local building works.'
Ms Baker reports that she and her staff thoroughly enjoyed a year in which they questioned the assumptions they had made in the past about boys and girls, and the way they did things as female practitioners.
'By focusing on what boys are good at, we found so many opportunities to delight in their achievements,' she says. 'At the end of the year we were particularly pleased that our assessments of children on leaving showed that 81 per cent of boys achieved most or all of the first three scale points on the Foundation Stage Profile across all areas of learning, and were well on track to achieve most of the early learning goals by the end of the Foundation Stage. The girls also did very well.'
Windham's intake for 2004-05 has a very different profile. The ratio of boys to girls is 59 per cent to 41 per cent. But the biggest change is that it has a far higher proportion of younger children than usual. A substantial minority will have up to six terms compared with three terms, which has been the norm over recent years.
'We also have four sets of twins attending at the same time,' says Ms Baker. 'So our planning and provision is changing to meet the needs, interests and individuality of this cohort of children - it's all about bringing out the very best in all of the children, all of the time.'
OUTREACH SERVICES
As a partnership for children, Windham provides a variety of services from its location in the heart of residential Richmond, Surrey, taking play to the community and the individual. While initially this service was designed only for 'hard-to-reach' families, there are now parent and toddler groups, and infant massage classes every week for all.
Jigsaw is an on-site unit which provides specialist facilities for up to six pre-schoolage children from across the borough who have been assessed as having social and communication disorders, including autism. A specialist curriculum is offered that combines the discipline of speech and language therapy with teaching.
An early years advisory team operates out of Windham. This promotes best practice in the Foundation Stage across maintained, private, voluntary and independent settings in the area, as well as childminders.
The team also provides training and mentoring on curriculum development and pre- and post-Ofsted inspection advice.
The area SENCO team is also based at Windham and fulfils a similar role in supporting inclusion across all settings.
Windham has been operating since 1946. There are two separate daily sessions plus full-time and lunch-club places available to meet the needs of parents and children. The redesign has created a space that is predominantly open plan, with easy access to the outdoors and a lot of natural light.
There is also a sensory room with a specifically designed environment offering the children a wide range of sensory experiences in therapy, learning, relaxation and fun. Cherry Baker says, 'This is a very special room in which the children can completely relax or interact with all elements of the space.'
