EYFS Best practice: All about ... Learning with recycled materials

It's not so very long ago that disposability was an exciting byproduct of new materials and manufacturing processes. Your razor need never dull, your baby's bottom need never be sore, and you would never again have to carry a shopping bag with you. But now we know where that leads: to a floating continent of plastic bottles in the Pacific and a backbeat of concern about dwindling natural resources - consequences that we all desperately want solutions for.

So, I expected enthusiasm among the people who make recycled materials available to schools and early years settings. But I could not have guessed at the passion I would encounter in every single person I met.

From managers of local scrapstores to educators and artists in ground-breaking resource centres, from early years practitioners to heads, advisers and directors of local authority services, they are all so excited by the potential for learning and exploration in objects that would otherwise disappear into landfill.

Paul Hanson is typical. As strategic director for community services in North Tyneside, he was instrumental in securing funding for House of Objects, a 'centre for creative recycling' on the outskirts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 'It was my daughter who first convinced me that this was something the authority should be funding,' he says. 'She was two when we visited the pilot project in 2007, and she was captivated by the space and everything in it.'

The cause of everyone's enthusiasm is clear. Local manufacturers and businesses produce mountains of waste every year that are either dumped or burned. A proportion of that waste is clean and safe, comprising items of various shapes, colours, patterns and textures. These objects have no apparent purpose - and this is precisely what makes them perfect as resources for children that invite questions, investigation, creativity and problem-solving. Combine the benefits to the environment with benefits to children's learning, and you have the ultimate virtuous circle.

'House of Objects allows children and their teachers to invent, create and find new purposes for waste materials so they are not simply chucked away,' says Paul Hanson. Mindful of North Tyneside's plan to change attitudes towards waste management, he and his colleagues concluded that they 'would be daft' not to fund House of Objects, and it is now a service provided entirely by the local authority.

From what you know so far, you would be forgiven for thinking that House of Objects is a scrapstore - one of the nearly 100 treasure houses across the UK that relieve local businesses of waste to provide creative resources for schools and other groups. But, while the House certainly serves this purpose, it is not a scrapstore. Neither is the UK's only other such operation, WEAVE Recycle in Leamington Spa.

Creative practice

Instead, both are centres that promote excellent creative practice with young children (and others), and which do so by offering and exploring the learning potential in found objects and recycled materials. Both are inspired by ReMida, a recycling project that originated in Reggio Emilia, and their aim is to offer a practical way in to the pedagogical approach adopted in northern Italy.

'The impetus behind WEAVE was continuous professional development,' explains its director, Vikki Holroyd. 'We wanted to foster good practice in the process of actually working with children.' Elaine Mason, manager of development and creativity at House of Objects, says much the same of the House. 'Coming here is the best possible form of CPD,' she says. 'It can be such a revelation for practitioners to see what their children can do.'

From scrap to gold

Anyone who is familiar with scrapstores will know how satisfying, and how much fun, it is to investigate shelf after shelf of different fabrics and to rummage through barrels of plastic wastes. The odds and ends they offer provide teachers and practitioners with cheap resources that enable all sorts of projects, while the donating businesses can feel good about solving at least part of their waste problem.

But WEAVE and the House of Objects do not simply store materials for practitioners to sort through. They display them beautifully in their warehouses, on attractive shelving and in such a way as to inspire creative ideas. At WEAVE, for instance, objects are laid out in colour waves - a container of blue plastic bottle tops appears alongside sheets of blue Perspex, blue foam of different shapes and hues, blue card and other unidentifiable blue items from manufacturing.

Music accompanies your visit, and the artistic presentation of ordinary things in large number is so pleasing that you just want to dive head-first into it all. Aside from the colour waves there are thematic displays, so that a collection of film spools is arranged alongside a cardboard tube stuffed with miles of loose videotape and nameless bits and pieces that, by their shape or feel, recall the idea of film.

This approach is taken directly from ReMida (which is the Italian for King Midas) and interpreted by WEAVE and the House of Objects for the spaces available to them. Both operate schemes where practitioners, teachers and others from member organisations can visit the warehouse and choose from the objects on display. But each has a very different model for fostering the pedagogical approach to learning that is central to their aims.

House of Objects is a state-of-the-art ReMida play and learning space, where children and their teachers can visit once or often for an exciting experience that helps them to adapt the learning in their own environment. 'I want practitioners to see the full extent of what children are capable of discovering without being led,' says Elaine Mason.

To achieve this, she wanted to create an eye-opening space of discovery and invention, something that cannot be achieved in school surroundings. Professional development is fostered through visits to the House itself and via training in developing children's imaginations and thinking skills.

Outreach work

Operating out of a smaller space, WEAVE does not generally offer itself as a space for play. Instead, it focuses on outreach work to settings and on a range of training workshops. Some are linked directly to the EYFS, so that practitioners might create a piece of art featuring materials from the warehouse that can extend the children's experience of maths. Other sessions focus entirely on creative development, while yet more concentrate on broader themes in early learning, such as outdoor play, engaging boys and inspiring play for children under two.

Vikki Holroyd has recently established WEAVE as a not-for-profit business - an imaginative response to the local authority's reluctant withdrawal of funding.

While the ways in which House of Objects and WEAVE operate may differ, they are at one in their determination to spread the ReMida way of working. Their success in doing so is due in no small part to the enthusiasm that infects Elaine and Vikki and all involved in this work. Having seen and heard about their work at first hand, I'm convinced that it's an infection worth catching.

Pat Gordon-Smith is a writer and editor. See her blog, 'Children's rights and other things', at http://patsky.blogspot.com

OPEN-ENDED PLAYTIME

Every scrapstore has its own business model that responds to local needs. 'Some focus on environmental concerns, some on art, some on outreach and some on play and learning,' says Jeff Hill, chief executive of Children's Scrapstore in Bristol and co-ordinator of a new federation, Scrapstores UK. 'But whatever the individual circumstances,' he adds, 'all share the use of recyclable materials.'

Children's Scrapstore itself operates out of a 6,000-square-foot warehouse, and this size creates the potential for an ambitious play-based initiative. The PlayPod project, by its design, promotes open-ended play in schools and fosters principles of learning through play. And, while Children's Scrapstore does not offer the pedagogical guidance available through WEAVE and House of Objects, some training linked to the PlayPod is available for subscribers.

The PlayPod is an industrial container stocked with a range of recycled materials that are made available to children during the long school lunchtimes. Filled with a wide selection of resources - parachute material, buckets, giant spools that housed industrial cables, nets, lengths of plastic, rubber, card, tyres and much more - it encourages children to investigate them as they wish in their own outdoor space.

You can see a PlayPod in action on the Children's Scrapstore website: http://www.childrensscrapstore.co.uk/Projects.htm (scroll right across the page to find the video), and it's incredibly exciting to watch children in Key Stages 1 and 2 engaged in the sort of imaginative, problem-solving play that is more usually seen in the Foundation Stage. There is genuine potential here for educators seeking a solution to the vexed problem of how to extend play-based learning for children as they move into Key Stage 1 while also satisfying the demands of the National Curriculum.

Jeff Hill explains that the PlayPod has not so far been taken up by many local early years settings due to limitations on their outdoor space. But the principle of and potential for building a store of recycled materials for free play among children of any age is clear.

There is a scrapstore near you. To find one visit http://www.childrensscrapstore.co.uk for the UK Directory of Scrapstores, or call Scrapstores UK on 0117 914 3005.

OUTREACH FROM WEAVE

'I've always been aware that staff is our most important resource,' says Trudy Lindsay, head of Warwick Children's Centre. 'Keeping that in mind, we booked ten sessions with WEAVE as part of our programme to increase the level of training among staff, some of whom have not had the opportunity to benefit from much continuing professional development.'

While introductory sessions with WEAVE's artist-in-residence Emily Warner were carried out in WEAVE's own training room, Trudy asked for most to be in their early years setting because, as she explains, 'You need to see what works in your own space.'

At the children's centre, Emily worked with staff on several projects, each of which keenly illustrated the principles and benefits of an open-ended approach with recycled materials that could be a jumping-off point for the children's play over several weeks and also for the practitioners' future independent planning.

A winter-themed sensory environment, for instance, was put together using mainly white, shiny or reflective objects and some lights - all chosen by Emily and one of the Warwick practitioners. The children were then invited to explore the environment and resources as they wished. 'I've heard some of them call it their ice cave,' says Trudy.

'The space is open to change and is offered as an environment where the children can be, explore, imagine and respond openly,' says Emily. 'For follow-on sessions the staff adapted the space, adding materials and rearranging the environment according to the children's responses.'

In another session, Emily brought the WEAVE approach to the centre's book corner. 'It was perfectly fine before,' Trudy explains, 'with nice bookcases at a good height for the children, appropriate books and comfy cushions. But it was not actively enticing.'

Now, a canopy over the space can be adapted in line with the children's own interests. Covered seating can be moved and re-covered by the children, with extra fabric available in boxes, and there are log stumps that provide a different texture.

'The theme of the book corner can change to suit whatever the children are focusing on or in response to a particular book or rhyme,' says Emily. An interest in underwater worlds can, for instance, be supported by the simple use of different fabrics.

'The purpose of engaging WEAVE was to empower staff and to pass that on to parents, because a lot of our sessions are stay-and-play for parents,' says Trudy. 'Staff have been inspired about what they can do with what is available and they are beginning to advise parents. That's fantastic, because we work with a lot of vulnerable families and WEAVE has helped us show them what they can do with what little they have.' And that, she adds, is exactly what the centre is all about.

VISITS TO THE HOUSE OF OBJECTS

Perhaps the greatest asset for the House of Objects is the space available, as it has enabled Elaine Mason and her staff to create a varied and fluid play space for children. In this way, the House acts as an inspiring beacon of best practice, enabling early years practitioners to see just how far children's creative imaginations can take them when open-ended materials are offered in ways that invite new ideas.

'When the children come, they arrive in our warehouse so they can see all the materials arranged beautifully,' says Elaine Mason. Contained in the warehouse, she explains, is a 'workshop' set up with tools and woodworking materials and other unexpected items which young children love to pick up and investigate in various ways, with no expectation that they will 'make' something.

'It's the older children who choose to do that,' she says.

Elsewhere in the House is a hall with light boxes, wiring, building materials and other oddments, and there is constant access to the outdoors. 'Everything is set up to inspire the children to new personal investigations,' says Elaine. 'It is an art environment full of resources that the children wouldn't normally see at school.'

While that might be the case before schools visit the House of Objects, things soon change afterwards, as the experience of Rockliffe First School shows. 'The children sat for ages at the clay table that was laid out with screws and bolts and tiny figures,' says Lindsay Ford, Rockliffe's early years co-ordinator. 'They created a tiny environment, and it helped our teachers remember that it's OK to take the dinosaurs out in the mud!'

By accompanying their class to the House of Objects, Rockliffe staff were able to experience a wealth of different ways that recycled materials can be used - and not just those that the school gets from the House. 'After our visit, the caretaker offered two old drawer units that he was throwing out,' says Lindsay, 'and that has become our mini House of Objects.'

The days of traditional junk modelling are gone at Rockliffe. 'We don't want cardboard boxes for our store, we want buttons and ribbons that can be re-used,' Lindsay says. 'If we can have it en masse it feels like a treasure. I have a box full of little drinking yoghurt bottles, for example, and the children simply love playing with them because, when there are 50 of them all together, they stop being boring used things and turn into exciting possibilities.'

SMALL STEPS WITH WEAVE MATERIALS

Artist Helen Clues is employed by Leamington Children's Centre as its own artist-in-residence. As part of her work across the centre's five sites, she offers weekly art sessions with WEAVE materials at a drop-in creche for under-fives in the centre's Lillington site. These have resulted in creative projects that are entirely shaped by the children and their families.

A 'tree' constructed from bare twigs, for example, is decorated, Christmas style, with an ever-changing selection of recycled bits and pieces chosen from the materials that Helen leaves permanently in the centre. And, during the worst of the winter weather, the children spent an entire session making and remaking a 'snow monster' using WEAVE materials, so that the creature kept changing as their ideas developed. 'It was like a conversation with each other using resources,' says Alison Selwood, manager of the Lillington site.

The impact of this work on the practitioners is obvious, and it has enormous potential. 'Before working with Helen, we'd expect children to do one activity and then go on to the next after a certain amount of time,' says Janet Williams, an early years practitioner who works across the Leamington sites. 'Now, we encourage them to move among the activities as they wish. It's about the process of learning, not just about making something.'

MORE INFORMATION

- To find out more about ReMida, contact the Sightlines Initiative on 0191 261 7666 or visit http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/remida.htm

- House of Objects, tel: 0191 643 2240 or visit: www.northtyneside.gov.uk/browse.shtml?p_subjectCategory =812

- WEAVE Recycling, tel: 01926 430068 or visit www.weaverecycle.co.uk