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Editor's view

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
As the nine to five working day becomes ever less common, the need grows for childcare in what used to be called unsocial hours. Evening work, night shifts, weekend work - parents who have little choice but to take jobs involving these patterns of work can really struggle to find childcare. So it's not surprising that some nurseries are looking to offer overnight care. The barrier so far in England has been the requirement to register as a children's home, although this will change under the new national daycare standards. In Scotland, where there is no such rule, a new 24-hour nursery, Harlequins, has just opened in Glasgow (see News, page 4).

Schools confused by conflicting advice over disease precautions

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
Schools are being given conflicting advice on how to respond to the foot and mouth crisis in different parts of Britain. In Dumfries and Galloway, where 115 cases have been identified - nearly a seventh of the total number of cases across the country - schools within a 16-kilometre radius of confirmed outbreaks have been given disinfectant mats. However, Department for Education and Employment guidance for schools in England published last week warns against the use of such mats for health and safety reasons.

Longer deadline for childcare photo contest

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
* There is still time for young photographers to enter their efforts in the competition for National Childcare Week 2001, as the deadline has now been extended until 16 April. Children are invited to take photos of celebrations at their childcare setting and send them in to Nursery World with a caption. The competition is organised by Nursery World in conjunction with the Daycare Trust and the nursery group Nursery works Family Solutions, and the winner will be announced during National Childcare Week in May.

Pride of place

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
Now that you are ready to develop your outdoor area, check that you will be making the most of it and of your own responsibilities as an educator The real challenge in outdoor learning is in the planning. To have an effective outdoor curriculum, practitioners need to plan a stimulating environment. They need to see the learning potential of that environment, and recognise and support children's learning within it. Crucially, plans need to be based on the current needs of the individual child, taking into account their rate, or style, of learning. So where do you start?

On a grander scale

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
The outdoors should complement what is happening indoors, for example: I = Inside O = Outside

Obstacle course

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
Many early years practitioners take children outdoors less often than they could. But as the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, they can find ways around any barriers Research indicates that too few children are being given enough learning opportunities outdoors in early years settings even when they have access to a suitable outdoor area. To change the way they use the outdoors, early years settings need to first change their attitude towards it.

Songs and stories

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
Songs to sing and games to play outside include: * What's the time, Mr/Mrs Wolf?

Quote of the week

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
'Some mothers say they leave their babies to give them a better life. But they haven't thought about the effect on the baby ... Most people take for granted simple things like knowing when they were born and how much they weighed. We don't have that' Sandra Webster, who was abandoned at three weeks and created the Foundling Group for adults abandoned as babies, The Observer

Fees threat to childminders

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
The cost of criminal record checks could cause a drop in the number of childminders, the National Childminding Association (NCMA) has warned. NCMA chief executive Gill Haynes gave evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which is looking into the opening of the Criminal Records Bureau, and said many childminders could not afford to pay for the compulsory criminal record checks themselves.

Feeling groovy

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
There's little that's educational about the software based on Disney's latest opus 'The Emperor's New Groove', but, what the heck, the Easter holidays are nearly upon us, so let's relax the rules a little. The Groove Centre (Windows/Mac, CD Rom, 19.99, Disney Interactive) has the usual activities based on the film - pick off the baddies as they climb the ziggurat for a helpless Kuzco (the llama/ prince hero); nobble the hungry crocodiles as they attempt to maul the hapless-but-hip llama swinging on a rope above their pool; build your own animated tapestry using the figures provided. The characters have the pleasingly ironic quality that Disney uses these days to balance the sugar and mollify the adults, and there are some spectacular effects - Yzma's animal soldiers flying out of the screen at you when hit, for instance. Otherwise, the games are pretty run-of-the-mill by today's standards. One exception is the game called Kornotopia. This entails helping Pacha, the village chief, to grow various crops - corn, tomatoes, beans and pumpkins. You hand him a hoe by clicking and dragging, and he tills the field, then a bag of seed, and he sows the crop. Next you take him a watering bag and he waters the growing crops. Finally, when the crops are ripe, you give him a basket for harvesting, and place the full basket in a donkey cart. At each stage, the unmistakeable tones of actor John Goodman (the voice of Pacha) urge you on. This simple activity was easily the favourite with my young testers. It does have a scoring system, but they didn't care much about that, they just liked seeing things grow. Ultimately, Kornotopia could subvert the unspoken aim of all commercial programmes - to keep users coming back for more - since the children's instinctive response to the virtual soil suggested that they might get even more satisfaction if you shut down the computer for the holidays and put them in contact with the real stuff.

Screen out sugar

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
I thought the feature 'Healthy bytes' (1 March), about a computer programme for childcarers, gave a very misleading impression. The booklet is excellent, although very dry, but you would never guess the computer programme was based on its advice. I would say the programme is a big step backwards. It has all the faults of old-fashioned school dinners, such as a daily pudding made with fat, white sugar and white flour, plus some 'modern' faults like recommending nuggets and fast foods. The photo to illustrate it was also misleading - oranges and leeks do not feature much in the programme, nor do fresh fruit and vegetables nearly as much as they should.

Overnight nursery heralds new trend

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
Apioneering 24-hour nursery launched last week aims to provide overnight care for the children of shiftworkers. Harlequin Nurseries' new venture in Glasgow is the only one of its kind known to Nursery World in Scotland, and is believed to be one of just two settings currently registered to offer overnight care in the whole of Britain.

Lovely bubbley

    News
  • Wednesday, April 4, 2001
    • | Nursery World
I loved the feature about bubble wrap ('Fit to burst', 15 March). Recently I visited a nursery where one of my students was on placement. There they had laid out large sheets of bubble wrap outside and the children were running across it wearing Wellington boots.

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