Representatives from Manchester Education Partnership recently attended a series of meetings with architects working on the first phase of the city's children's centres.
Manchester already has six children's centres up and running, with five more awaiting approval. Twenty-six are planned in total, with funding of around 9.8m.
Bev Jones, the partnership's senior Foundation Stage consultant and a member of the team involved in planning the children's centres, said, 'I've been looking at what spaces would be used for and the impact on children's learning. I wanted to explore how the design could engage children rather than just comply with the standards.'
Ms Jones said she wanted to ensure some kind of communal eating area is included in the plans to help children's language development and social skills, and encourage their curiosity. 'If children can see the preparation of food, then they will ask questions about it. The idea is to have large windows into the kitchen so that children can see in and a central space next to the kitchen where children and practitioners and visiting parents can eat. At the moment, children tend to eat in the same room they spend the whole day in and there is no link with food preparation.'
Other elements she would like to see incorporated in the design include flexible spaces with fewer fixed rooms, windows at child height, and skylights. 'We really want to start with the child and allow children and practitioners to develop the space,' said Ms Jones. 'We expect children to become curious people, yet we surround them with solid walls.'
She added, 'This is very much a wish-list, but the basic principles are there.'
Tina Kelley, Sure Start capital project manager, said, 'To speed up the process we have a partnership with three construction teams who typically do school extensions and new builds, so we don't have to go out to tender.'
The majority of children's centres will be extensions to premises or conversions, including buildings on school sites and existing early years settings.
The construction companies involved are Amec, Bramalls and Wilmott Dixon.
The first phase will be completed by March 2006 and the design work for the second phase will start at the end of 2005.
