More than 200 settings entered the Nursery World Outdoor Challenge competition to win 2,850 worth of equipment and advice to redevelop their outdoor spaces. After much deliberation, we can announce that The Red House Children's Centre in Bristol is the overall winner.
When the non-maintained day nursery school opened in 1988 the back garden was found to be full of conifer trees, bricks and all sorts of rubbish - including old saucepans.
Within months, headteacher Maggie Kirby and her husband cleared the space and, with the help of the local community, dug a pond, laid a brick path and planted grass seeds and a herb garden.
With a strong underpinning knowledge of the importance of outdoor play, Maggie involved the nursery children in each step of the garden's development, from choosing which seeds to grow to planting, watering and harvesting the results. Careful observation of children's interests, behaviour and comments has helped transform the back garden into the thriving area it is today.
But Maggie and her staff were aware that changes needed to be made to allow more free flow between the indoors and outdoors. Early years practitioner Donna Andrews wrote the winning entry after returning from a course on outdoor play.
She says, 'We want to see our outside spaces used to the maximum of their capacity - whatever the weather. And we are determined to give children the best possible opportunity to use their minds, senses, bodies and creativity to their fullest.'
Staff now want to develop the centre's front area. They have devised a plan for the garden and formed a working party to come up with fundraising ideas. Maggie says, 'The new outdoor area will be exciting and inviting - a paradise garden where all aspects of children's sensory, physical and social development will be catered for. There will be a musical garden, adventure climbing space and a friendship bench where children can sit and chat.'
Learning Through Landscapes, the national school grounds charity, will now visit the centre to give advice and ideas on what to do next. The school also wins a 2,000 voucher for a specially commissioned piece of equipment created by Handmade Places.
Runners-up
Congratulations also go to the ten runners-up, who each win 100 worth of Step by Step outdoor equipment and a year's membership to Learning Through Landscapes worth 50.
Carnegie Careshare Nursery, Dunfermline
Nursery manager Karen Lister plans to put into practice some of what she learned about Danish forest schools while doing her Professional Development Award. New to the post in what is a fairly new nursery with a largely undeveloped garden, Karen plans to:
* plant various shrubs, flowers and vegetables
* establish sensory and herb gardens
* create a shaded area
* install a storage-cum-workshed with a transparent roof.
Karen's goal is to provide the children with resources, freeflow access and time that will enable them to become active learners and explore the outdoors all year round.
Redford House Nursery, University of Surrey Roehampton
The space used by the under-twos is the focus of the nursery's outdoors redevelopment. The nursery plans to resurface the area and inset a sandbox, which would double as a lightbox with a toughened glass cover.
Along the wall will go a series of convex mirrors, a variety of textures, peepholes, surfaces for mark-making and drawers for storing sensory objects.
The space will be roofed with a pergola with struts, from which staff can drape fabrics, mobiles and chimes.
Moulsecoomb Primary School, Brighton and Hove
Situated in one of England's most deprived wards, staff want to develop an outdoor area that will offer their nursery and reception class children the experiences that they cannot enjoy at home - because they have no gardens - or in vandalised local parks.
Nursery teacher Ruth Kellas aims to develop an area that will offer children a sense of space and freedom, promote curiosity and meet the needs of the school's kinaesthetic learners.
She wants to provide resources that will promote cross-curricular learning, including a blackboard wall, guttering and water butt, carpentry tools, seating and a willow dome.
Swiftdale Day Nursery, Bedlington, Northumberland
Concerned by current trends such as rising childhood obesity and safety fears, nursery staff want to provide children with year-round access to a stimulating outdoor environment and encourage parents to view the outdoors as central to their children's development and education.
The nursery team has tried to redevelop the outdoor area, but repeated vandalism forced the nursery to use some of its limited funds on security measures, such as CCTV.
Two staff members have attended training on the outdoors and drawn up plans on how to redevelop the area. The nursery plans to extend its outdoors space and develop a range of areas including space for under-ones, sand and water play, quiet times and wheeled toys.
Nursery Hill Primary School, Nuneaton
A grassy mound for children to climb and roll down is just one of the additions that the Early Years Unit wants to make to its currently unappealing outdoor area.
Staff want to create 'a magical place' to help compensate for the children's lack of opportunity to play outdoors while at home.
They want the area to be capable of:
* offering meaningful and pleasurable experiences and physical activity
* stimulating imagination and senses
* responding to different learning styles
* providing space for reflection.
Features of the garden that will help them achieve their goals include a maze, tunnel and sensory areas.
Navigation Primary School, Altrincham, Cheshire
Until the end of the last academic year, nursery children could access a patch of grass and reception class children had only the main concrete playground.
The newly formed early years team then fenced off a new Foundation Stage play area and started transforming it, but with limited funds. Features now include role-play boxes, a construction area and a play house.
Most in need of further development is the setting's provision for physical development and knowledge and understanding of the world, and the team plan to provide:
* a minibeast area, with logs and grass
* a quiet area, accessed by stepping stones and filled with shrubs
* a garden
* a physical area with climbing frame and assault course.
YMCA Day Nursery, Bath
Based in central Bath and deprived for years of access to an outdoor area, the nursery now has the cash to redevelop a rundown area behind the building.
Money secured so far will enable the nursery to create a doorway into the area, make safe one of the surrounding walls and pave part of the space.
Plans for resources include providing a playhouse, wheeled toys, tunnels and balancing beams, seating, plants, mobiles, wind chimes and mirrors.
Highways at Hamstreet Kindergarten, Ashford, Kent
The pre-school attached to a primary school has started creating its 'outdoor nursery classroom', with input from the children and parents.
Previously without an outdoor area, the school then allocated them a piece of garden to develop. The pre-school's garden plan runs to some 30 different features, including:
* a compost bin and wormery
* a friendship bus stop
* a wicker wigwam
* a bridge with Perspex windows
* a patio for small-world play
* textured paths with objects such as marbles, shells and golf balls.
Ridgeway School, Warwick
The school serves as an assessment centre, currently catering for 20 nursery and ten reception class children, all with special educational needs.
The school plans to give all the children shared outdoor access. Staff aim to provide an outdoor area that is stimulating, but offers a good balance of active and quiet areas to meet the complex needs of all the children.
Areas to develop include a sand pit with cover, cycle trackway, mounds and logs for promoting physical development, a canopy, willow tunnel and textured surfaces.
Chapel Grange Montessori Nursery, Wilmslow, Cheshire
Children at Chapel Grange Montessori Nursery have access to not just the nursery garden but a neighbouring field. But staff want to extend their outdoor area so that they can better meet each child's developmental needs.
Among the areas to be developed are a music area, a digging area, where children can experiment with soil and mud, and a gazebo.
Further information
* Learning Through Landscapes, tel:01962 846 258 or www.ltl.org.uk.
