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Nursery is all outside space

Children will soon be able to play outdoors all day, every day, whatever the weather, at Scotland's first open-air nursery. The Secret Garden nursery, which is due to open next September, will be based at an orchard on the ancient site of Monimail Tower in Fife, north of Edinburgh.

The Secret Garden nursery, which is due to open next September, will be based at an orchard on the ancient site of Monimail Tower in Fife, north of Edinburgh.

The project is led by former nursery teacher Cathy Bache, who left her job two years ago to become a childminder so that she could develop her ideas on children and the outdoors by caring for them from her garden.

She said, 'The 17 children that I look after with another childminder haven't been inside my house for a year and a half, apart from to use the toilet. They arrive each day at my garden, kitted out in all-weather gear, and we spend the day playing in the sandpit and tree house and visiting the nearby woods and farm. We collect natural objects, talk about them and the day ends with lots of bouncing on the trampoline.

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