Nursery World - Nursery school is world landmark

The New Lanark site of the world's first nursery and infant school has been awarded World Heritage Status. The industrial cotton-spinning village is only the fourth site in Scotland to receive the status given to places of exceptional value. It joins internationally renowned sites including the Giant's Causeway and the Tower of London. New Lanark became famous as a model community under the management of Robert Owen from 1800 to 1825. He improved the mills and used profits to finance social and education reforms, including progressive schools in a building known as the Institute for the Formation of Character.

The industrial cotton-spinning village is only the fourth site in Scotland to receive the status given to places of exceptional value. It joins internationally renowned sites including the Giant's Causeway and the Tower of London. New Lanark became famous as a model community under the management of Robert Owen from 1800 to 1825. He improved the mills and used profits to finance social and education reforms, including progressive schools in a building known as the Institute for the Formation of Character.

Children were allowed to enter the Institute as soon as they could walk, which enabled their mothers to work in the mills. Owen banned corporal punishment and said young children should not be 'annoyed with books' but rather have freedom to play and socialise. Music and dancing played an important part of the curriculum which included nature studies, history, geography and drawing as well as reading, writing and arithmetic.

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