Nursery World - Years of experience

Both children and staff can reap the reward of having grannies coming in to work in a pre-school setting, writes Eve Boggenpoel As part of its campaign, 'Changing lives, changing life', which aims to highlight the contribution that parents and grandparents make to early years settings, the Pre-school Learning Alliance collated the stories of several grandparents working in pre-schools, a selection of which we recount below. It is clear that the experience older women gain while caring for their own children and grandchildren is taken with them to the pre-schools - to the benefit of everyone involved.

As part of its campaign, 'Changing lives, changing life', which aims to highlight the contribution that parents and grandparents make to early years settings, the Pre-school Learning Alliance collated the stories of several grandparents working in pre-schools, a selection of which we recount below. It is clear that the experience older women gain while caring for their own children and grandchildren is taken with them to the pre-schools - to the benefit of everyone involved.

Margaret Sutherland

Sixty-three-year-old Margaret Sutherland has been working at Bo-Peeps Pre-school in Rochester, Kent for the past year. She started out helping a couple of days a week while her granddaughter attended the scheme, but after her granddaughter left, Bo-Peeps asked if she would like to stay on as an assistant.

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