Working in a London nursery school, I have always felt very aware of the history behind, in and around it. It is more than 150 years since the great German teacher Friedrich Froebel invented the 'kindergarten' and explicitly recognised the importance of the child's activity in learning. It struck me how radical a way of thinking that still is, when the compere at last year's Early Years Professionals conference described young children as 'like an empty vessel ready to be filled'.
You can make your own choice between seeing children as fancy packages, ready to have stuff poured into them, or as inquisitive and thoughtful beings in their own right. I would choose Froebel every time.
The idea of the kindergarten inspired Robert Owen, who built an infant school for the children of his factory workers in New Lanark, Scotland, and the Macmillan sisters, who opened nursery schools in the poorest parts of London. The early decades of the 20th century saw an increase in the momentum for this more enlightened style of nursery and infant education. Children were to be offered space, time, and plenty of materials to manipulate and play with, in the presence of thoughtful adults with specialist training.
We live in an era that is sceptical of progress, but who can deny that the new nursery and infant schools released children from a kind of prison? Close to where I live, in east London, was one of the first free primary schools. The youngest children were kept in a big wire cage and those of six years and above sat still in rows, in classes of 50 or more, under the direction of a teacher on a high platform with a big stick.
Various educational fashions have come and gone, but nursery schools have stayed true to the values of play and outdoor learning. These ideas also have a strong hold in many other parts of the education system, beyond the few hundred nursery schools still left.
I hope that I have engaged with this tradition with enough energy, conviction and thoughtfulness, so that - with the help of many others - a little nursery school by King's Cross is being handed on to the future in good shape.
