'Seek children's advice on good nursery practice'
Alison Mercer
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Asking children for their views will provide some startling insights into how nursery staff can improve practice, a pioneering Scottish study has found. Stirling Council has published a practical guide, Children as Partners, which advises that nursery-age children can be consulted on a range of issues such as curriculum planning, staff deployment and purchasing resources - and that nurseries must be prepared to act on what they find out. It follows a two-year-pilot study undertaken in keeping with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says children's views should be taken into account.
Stirling Council has published a practical guide, Children as Partners, which advises that nursery-age children can be consulted on a range of issues such as curriculum planning, staff deployment and purchasing resources - and that nurseries must be prepared to act on what they find out. It follows a two-year-pilot study undertaken in keeping with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says children's views should be taken into account.
Terry McCabe (pictured above), co-author of the report and headteacher of Park Drive Nursery School in Bannockburn, which took part in the study, said, 'We can't believe we went on for so long thinking we knew what children felt without actually asking them, and now we feel we can never go back.'
One of the key discoveries was the value children place on outdoor play, she said. Children said they wanted adult supervision of outdoor play to make sure nobody hogged the facilities. This prompted the nursery to change its planning and make outdoor play a priority.
The children also showed themselves to be perceptive about the strengths and weaknesses of individual members of staff. When presented with a diagram of the nursery and Playmobil figures to position according to where they would like staff to go, children spontaneously began to talk about who they would like to go where and why. As they put a particular nursery nurse in the home corner, they would say, 'she's good at doing things with you there and talking to you about it'.
Ms McCabe said adopting the new approach seemed intimidating at first because the staff had to put so much thought into how to consult the children. The guide, co-written by Stirling's head of early childhood Linda Kinney, outlines their solutions. One way is to give children a chart with representative symbols of activities and stickers with happy and sad faces to help them identify what they enjoyed, and then to record their comments.
Children as Partners by Linda Kinney and Terry McCabe costs 10 (plus p&p) from Eileen McKenzie, Children's Services, Stirling Council, Room 215, Viewforth, Stirling FK8 2ET.
