Interview – Sue Egersdorff and Liz Ludden provide insights into creating an intergenerational nursery

TELL ME HOW THE IDEA FOR THE NURSERY CAME ABOUT.

I was invited by Belong to help them think about intergenerational provision and building a nursery into the design concept of one of their new villages. The initial idea was a co-located nursery, but together we developed a more ambitious integrated model.

I’m very clear when I talk to people this is not a co-located nursery. It goes further to allow for the spontaneous integration of children and older people, and not just ‘come along and we’ll do an activity together’.

This is about a new model, a new design of care provision for older people and younger children together. We’re not about taking the little ones to visit the older people a couple of times a week, this is about living life alongside each other.

There will be planned experiences and opportunities, but also a lot of spontaneous interactions going on.

YOU SAY YOU HAVE DESIGNED A BESPOKE INTERGENERATIONAL CURRICULUM?

The three key themes are from Froebelian and High-Scope principles: child and adult in mind – including cognitive development, executive functioning, self-regulation, processing speed, memory – child and adult in health, and child and adult in nature.

We’ve developed a Mirrored Curriculum Framework which does exactly what it says on the tin. It takes the EYFS and High-Scope principles and says if we plan from those, what does that mean for the child and what does that mean for the older person?

The first document we work from is our Attuned Relationships Model. This reinforces that if you don’t have a significant relationship, there is no significant learning.

Unless the relationships are right around the older people and the children, we won’t make the best of these experiences. We’ve brought care workers and early years workers together for training on what an intentional environment looks like and what the sensitive adult looks like when working alongside both age groups.

We haven’t come across anyone yet who thinks this isn’t a great idea – from senior leaders to older people moving in, we’ve had a universal ‘wow, this is exciting, it’s what we want to be part of’.

ARE YOU HOPING TO REPLICATE THIS WITH OTHER CARE PROVIDERS?

The reason why the nursery is only 25 children, is it’s about researching intergenerational pedagogy with a view to disseminating that.

So that’s where we got the interest from the University of Stirling. They have a kindergarten on their university site, and they are leaders internationally on dementia research. So, they use their kindergarten to test out some of their intergenerational ideas, around children and people living with dementia.

They wanted to work with us to try things out, which is why we’re working on our Born4Life project together. This brings outstanding early years settings together to test out ideas around intergenerational pedagogy.

HOW DID YOU SELECT THE NURSERIES FOR THE RESEARCH?

They had expressed an interest or were already doing intergenerational work. It was people who had come to us and wanted to work together. It was just a friendly Zoom originally. Then Northumbria University came in as a partner with Stirling and they have the ethical approval to do a baseline study with these nurseries as a preliminary research piece to apply for more significant funding for a longitudinal study.

Dr Kay Heslop is leading the research between Northumbria, Stirling and Liverpool John Moores University.

Dukes and Duchesses in Liverpool, Wild Things on the Isles of Uist [the Outer Hebrides], the Kindergarten at the University of Stirling and Childsplay in Newcastle are involved.

WHAT SORT OF THINGS ARE THEY DOING?

It’s about building sustained relationships, sustained engagement over time and the impact of that for both children and older people. In Newcastle, they’re renting a growing space in a community allotment, and everyone is working together. On the Isles of Uist – the geography of the islands made community work more challenging.  But now they’ve built causeways between the islands and Emily, who is working with us, plans a range of multigenerational experiences from a bell tent on the headland. Fun on the beach is very popular and children, parents, grandparents join in building and creating together. Their pirate ships are amazing!

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE NURSERY IN BELONG CHESTER…

We have paid a lot of attention to resources that work for both ages. For example, we’re adapting the seven stages of block play for older people. Men who are keen carpenters have shown a real interest; with things like dominos – we have beautiful chunky ones. We mostly use natural objects. The nursery is very uncluttered because clutter can be overwhelming for people living with dementia.

We have one main room and one rest room, which we call the Peace Room. This will be used as a quiet space for both children and older people.

Safeguarding is a critical issue. Supervision will be very high in terms of ratios. But we are not going to stop an older person from interacting spontaneously as they would in a family, and we have been reassured by parents who have said ‘we want that’.

There’s a garden, library, gym, creative space and a bistro – so that’s where [mixing] will be most spontaneous. When older people come into the nursery itself, it will be for more planned shared experiences.

Liz: We’re in the heart of the village. Our garden is next to the residents’ garden, so they are linked. The garden room is a space that is outside of the nursery that we will use to share time with residents. A beautifully sculpted fence panel has been designed so that it lends itself to easy communication and language development.

We’ve worked with Community Playthings on the furniture design and layout.

Sue: TTS have provided some amazing resources and we are working with them to develop respectful intergenerational pedagogy.

Liz: We have resources to encourage co-operation, empathy, language, fine motor skills and art materials that are sensitive to the needs of both [generations].

The resources we have chosen make use of the natural light in the nursery.

Furniture is a big consideration. We’ve worked with the village to provide appropriate seating, so an older person can come in and sit comfortably.

We have an IT whiteboard, which can have interactive games programmed for young children and older people to enjoy together.

Sue: Children can teach the older people how to use them. The child becomes the leader in technology.

We have also found that older people are very interested in sustainability. They want to engage in experiences that leave a better world for their children and grandchildren. This is saying you still have a life; you can make a contribution.