The thinking behind Ashbrow Infant and Nursery School's new Early Years Unit is explained by headteacher Ann Whitworth. 'We've always felt that five years old is a more natural break than four. So we have brought our nursery and reception classes into a single, open-plan area. This fits with our very well-founded philosophy about how young children learn, and about how we can organise the school to cater for that.'
The unit in Huddersfield is made up of nursery children, who attend part-time, and reception children. At 9 am, all the children start together with their key worker. 'We think it is especially important for all children to have a special person to link with,' says Ann Whitworth. 'The children stay with the same key person for their two years in the unit, and many of the group times, like singing and stories, will be with that person.
'This continuity allows a very good and close relationship to be established for children who are often moving away from home for the first time. We think that this way of working is emotionally fulfilling, and it allows children to settle comfortably into this first environment away from home.'
All the children can access the indoor and outdoor areas throughout the day, although for the reception children this is balanced with small group times -often with their key person - for early literacy and numeracy work. Every effort is made to give the children uninterrupted periods of time so that they can get deeply immersed in their learning. Ann says, 'We don't have a set play time, and the children only go to two assemblies a week, and these are at the end of the morning session when the nursery children go home.'
The school, in an area of disadvantage where 80 per cent of children receive free school meals, won strong support from Kirklees Local Education Authority to establish the unit. Funding came from the authority's Standards Fund and from the Government's Early Excellence initiative. The decision to bring the nursery and reception children together fits neatly with the new Early Learning Goals, which have created a Foundation Stage for children aged from three to the end of the reception year.
Ann Whitworth feels positive about the new guidelines. 'We are all in the business of helping very young children to develop into well-adjusted, happy, useful citizens,' she says, 'and play is a highly important to that. If we make children miss out on these early stages, then it's like trying to build a wall and missing out the foundations.'
Mary Jane Drummond, lecturer in Education at Cambridge University, shares this view. 'Play is being squeezed out of reception classes, but this is a dreadful mistake, because so many important things are happening when young children play. They aren't "just playing", but they are reasoning, imagining, solving problems, experimenting, creating new stories and retelling old ones, exploring possible worlds, building friendships, finding out how the world works. In play, the opportunities for learning are endless.'
Julian Grenier is deputy headteacher of Woodlands Park Nursery Centre in Harringay, London, an early excellence centre.
