In the News
https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2022/04/twenty-minutes-with-trees-restores-your-focus-the-father-of-the-uks-forest-schools-on-the-outdoor-learning-boom
Let’s shake up Education
At Inspirations nurseries we go the extra mile to ensure we are providing the children in our care a ‘second to none’ learning environment. Our ethos and pedagogy speak of children learning trough their interests, through nature and art, both independently and with their peers. Our environment is set up to encourage thought processing skills, logical problem solving and collaborating ideas to solve problems within small groups of friends and/or the adults supporting them.
Our love of all thing’s nature encourages us to consider the planet and our impact on its future evolution. We recycle, upcycle and reuse and repurpose our waste as much as possible and discuss with the children our environmental impact wherever appropriate.
The time, care and commitment required to offer our children this rich varied learning environment is considerable, the rewards however, are clear to see in the faces of every one of our children. Their open, happy, faces, the intent with which they explore each developmental opportunity is the reason we, in this profession, do what we do, it’s pure joy.
There is no doubt in my mind that the freedom of choice, the sense of open space and freedom, the ability to be autonomous in their learning experiences, to make their own choices and explore their own ideas is one hundred percent the reason that our children stand out in reception classes across our postcode as having the necessary ‘school ready skills’ (a term I abhor)!
It therefore leaves me feeling deflated, saddened and to be honest a little angry on behalf our children that these foundational skills which should be built on and nurtured throughout their childhood, is ripped away by a school education system that is failing to ignite curiosity, lifelong learning skills and most of all, an enthusiasm to learn. Having had a child recently start school after attending Inspirations I can’t tell you how against the grain I have found the homework load, the testing at age five and above all, the change in my child’s engagement in her own learning. Her interest has waned, she is no longer skipping out to tell me what she has been doing… Why, because it has been inconsequential to her, it is something that has just happened, rather than something she has engaged with and in. She is no longer at the centre of her learning process. Testing teachers teaching skills has overridden the requirement (and every child’s right) to put them at the heart of their own learning and development.
Consider an alternative
It is my view that our current learning institution is failing in terms of both the children attending and the teachers teaching. Here at Inspirations, we have witnessed first-hand the uptake of teachers leaving the profession in recent years citing burnout and their personal loss of passion for a role that is no longer rewarding to them. I have always said that working alongside children is a vocation not a job, we need to foster the passion and autonomy of the people educating our children NOT beat them down and stamp them out. This is unfortunately the situation we are currently facing within schools across the UK.
The alternative then… Let’s consider a school environment that follows a similar ethos and pedagogy to Inspirations where children and adults collaborate together in environments that encourage lifelong learning experiences, where children feel free to learn though play where they can experiment, make mistakes and learn from them without feeling like they have failed or haven’t met pre prescribed arbitrary standards. ‘Standards’ which only serve to demoralise both the teachers and students.
Our school environments haven’t changed since their conception over a hundred years ago. I for one think it’s time for a new approach.
Do you agree?
-Nicola
Project Based learning in Adel
We're heading over to our Pre-School Adel setting this week to see what's been going on. Just like our Horsforth setting; Adel follows a child centred approach with a focus on creativity and project based learning.
Our Adel children began talking about farms when we returned in September and since then we found out what they know and learn and followed that interest.
They began talking about the animals and especially pigs so we focussed in on this particular animal to learn more about them. We read non-fiction books together and looked at the internet for facts about what pigs do and look like. We read The 3 Little Pigs story in English and Spanish and made their houses inside and outside in the garden.
We used pigs for maths, shapes, estimating, counting and size ordering. We had sensory play with shaving foam, mud and paint to make muddy pigs, investigated real pig snouts and baked our own pig snout biscuits. We talked about our senses and animal senses and our Atelierista worked with the children on smelling different scents and choosing which to use in their ‘smelly snouts’ as well as making a group Papier-mâché pig.
Horses became the animal of interest so again we asked the children what they knew and wanted to know about them. The children always suggest we can read books and look at the internet for information so we did this and discovered lots of new facts about how many jobs they do and what they look like.
Since then we have learned about their hooves and horseshoes, and made horseshoes using clay, tools, and metallic paint with our Atelierista. We have role played using cowboy hats and learned about cowboys, made hobby horses to race on the field, used sewing skills to make sock puppets and went on a trip to Hope Pastures to see some real horses up close.
The children have been talking about tractors and combine harvesters so we are learning more about them and what they are used for. We have had tractors in paint to make tracks, washed them and used them in the mud, we have been singing the old Wurzels Combine Harvester song together and have read non-fiction and fiction books about tractors. At the moment the children have been telling us what the tractors do to help farms and which food might grow on a farm, so we will be following this path to learn more about farm produce and planning lots of activities to support this journey togetherincluding visiting a local farm.
Movement and Sensory
“Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of the mind comes from movement” – Maria Montessori
Having only being on the planet a short space of time, babies are very curious and explorative learners. They use all their senses to explore and learn about the world around them. They are primed to respond to sensory stimuli, starting from in the womb; touch being the first sense to form and then the others follow. It is important to provide a variety of sensory experiences from a very young age to support the development of the senses, and on more than one occasion. Repetition will give babies time to explore and investigate whilst making vital connections in the brain for future learning. This needs to be supported with a play-based approach as it is not a taught process. When engaged in movement play, children are working the brain and making incredible connections that will support their future movements. Movement is very important between the ages of 0-9 and supports children with links created in the brain.
How do we support this at Inspirations?
Providing children have access to space, resources and good role models, children will spontaneously make the movements and develop their brains, making the connections needed. At Inspirations, we always ensure we provide opportunities that support children in the five headings and what it supports:
- Floor play- tummy and back. Floor play/ tummy time is really vital for the brain to make connections for early reading in future learning. If the baby is premature or has reflux, this will be really uncomfortable for them so it’s not recommended. Different textures such as bubble wrap, corrugated cardboard or a slightly deflated gym ball are good opportunities for this. Being on the tummy helps with connections to develop bladder control and the sense of need- heat, cold, drink etc.
- Belly crawling/creeping. Supports bladder and bowel control, stimulates foot arch (walk on tip toes), hip rotation, physical alignment, lower palm rotation- mark making. Making swirly patterns in gloop supports the opening of palms.
- Crawling supports the cross lateral part of the brain. This will help with making the connections in the brain to enable us to use a knife and fork for example. This allows more complex balancing/ coordination, the ability to remember, sort and filter tactile, aural and visual information. Children who haven’t crawled tend to find it more difficult to remember sequence, remember the last instruction given.
- Upright. Sensory intelligence, balance and coordination, supports reaching and grabbing. The balance receptors in your feet are stimulated
- Spinning, rocking, rolling and swinging. Eye tracking/ convergence- reading, complex balance ability, great coordination, vestibular awareness, help to centralise their body movements.
The 'Bare' Necessities
Toe flicking and spending as much time as possible with bare feet is one of the lesser know important aspects. Children who have not had much time doing this are often the children who kick out when laid down or kick whilst sat at the table as they are craving the feeling on their feet. The educators with the babies will often create a sensory walk for them to experience lots of different textures on their bare feet. We also allow the babies to strip down to their nappies when involved in sensory/messy play. This enables them to get a full sensory experience all over their bodies. A sensory activity is planned most days alongside the children’s interests for our babies and toddlers.
Being outside is a totally different sensory experience. Outdoor learning is a big aspect of our ethos that we provide all day, every day. The weather provides different experiences as well as the surroundings, growth, plants and herbs. Our toddlers enjoy adding paint, essential oils or bubbles to puddles and then lots of splashing and watching the changes emerge. They will hang foil blankets in the trees when it is windy to listen to the noises it creates. Our babies are out at least twice a day, no matter what the weather. We therefore provide full suits to enable all our children to have the full experience of all weathers, without any limitations. Our toddlers have the door open and can choose to go in or out all day. Preschool are based in an outdoor classroom with a yurt so experience all weathers all day.
Supporting our children’s developmental needs ultimately helps prepare them for future challenges, and an independent happy future.
Making up Stories
Last week it was National Story telling week, so our children had a go creating their own stories. Here are the stories from 2 of our pre-school children.
Taking Care of Mental Health
In today’s blog we are thinking and looking at the importance of taking care of our mental health and wellbeing. To say the last year has been difficult would be an understatement! It has been extremely challenging and may have taken a toll on our mental health and wellbeing.
At Inspirations we believe that the staff are the lifeblood of our nursery, and therefore supporting their mental health and wellbeing is a key priority. This was top of the agenda for our first staff meeting of the year.
As a setting we have introduced a new wellbeing policy and different initiatives (ie wellbeing basket, flowers and activities in the staff room, celebrating working anniversaries), to help staff to focus on their own wellbeing, while supporting them both professionally and personally. Staff also have full access to our EAP program (employee assistant program). The program offers a free 24hr confidential helpline to help with anything from stress and anxiety to gambling issues. If needed staff can be referred for 6 free counselling sessions. The program also offers many wellbeing services with its ‘My Healthy Advantage’ app where you can do things from mini health checks to tracking your sleep or mood. Family members can also access the program.
Promoting wellbeing among staff is not only humane and a good thing in itself but, also has a number of benefits for our setting, such as.
- Positive impact on children, including stronger relationships.
- Reduced absences
- Staff being able to manage their own stress better and to develop healthier coping strategies.
- Staff feeling valued, supported and invested in.
Supporting Mental Health in Early Years
The foundations for a child’s healthy emotional development are known to be laid down in their early years. At Inspirations we recognise the importance of positive early experiences for mental wellbeing. Feelings or attachment, security and positive stimulations within loving relationships (key person) help to strengthen a child’s development emotionally. This makes them more likely to thrive and become healthy adults.
We know at Inspirations that all adults who spend time with young children have a responsibility to help in their healthy mental development and wellbeing. This is just another reason why we make it a priority all staff are qualified to level 3 or above (or working toward).
Some of the ways we support our children’s wellbeing daily are, through stories, outdoor play, singing, music, drawing and crafts, use of emotional language, role play and general play.
In relation to children’s wellbeing, long term Forest School programs are found to have positive impacts on children’s physical and mental health, in addition to improving their social and cognitive competence. Being outside in a natural environment has been shown to relieve stress by reducing the levels of stress hormone, cortisol, in the brain. Children taking part in forest school sessions quickly show evidence of a greater emotional maturity.
Promoting wellbeing in children enhances their confidence and resilience. The promotion of social skills through group games and activities will enable our children to be confident communicators and develop positive friendships and relationships. Our forest school sessions also promote self-esteem and emotional intelligence by giving children ownership and control. Being outdoors in our beautiful natural environment is as beneficial to the staff as it is to our children.
Our setting is homely and cosey with lots of opportunity for conversations. Children are encouraged to choose what they do, with guided play (forest school, art studio). Children also have opportunity to take safe risks, building their confidence and resilience.
As a team we are constantly reflecting on our environment and daily routine, and how it best supports children’s emotions. We also recognise that family is the most important influence in a child’s life. Building strong bonds with our parents/carers is extremely important to us at Inspirations. All our children/families have their own key person. The presence of a key person helps both the child and parent/carer to feel more emotionally secure, and of course our management team are also there to offer support to our families daily.
-Tara
What's New for 2022
Welcome back from us all at Inspirations Nurseries, we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and New Year. We are excited for the year ahead and welcome back our current families and all our new families who are joining us this coming year.
We are excited to reveal that this year we will see all onsite construction complete! After over 3 years of developments and improvements, and some Covid related delays, our onsite developments will be finished.
So what can we expect to see this year?
The new staff room
Our growing staff require more space so our new staff room is well under way next to the Art Studio. This frees up the old staff room space which we will transform into a dinning area for our pre-schoolers. This will be a place for them to enjoy Carol’s hot meals cooked on site and refuel after their morning at forest school, art studio, yurt or outdoor classroom.
The Green house and Vegetable Patch
Coming 2022, a new exciting onsite development. Our new green house and vegetable patch will be an additional space for all age groups to explore and enjoy. A space for them to grow their own plants, fruit and vegetables. Another opportunity for our children to learn from nature and even taste their produce.
The Walk of Art
This year will be taking part in the Walk of Art again on 2nd July. The theme this year is Many Leaves, One Tree, and focuses on us being individuals who are still connected.
Some other dates for the diary include:
Summer Party- Saturday 23rd July
Parents evening- Monday 20th June
A New Years Resolution
It might be 2022, but our ethos and mission remains the same. As a nursery our new years resolution is to continue to learn from nature and make the right choices for our children and our planet.
Teaching children about the natural world should be seen as one of the most important events in their lives - Thomas Berry
2021 Wrapped
The year in review
Our children at Inspirations continue to lead their own learning and inspire us each day as we view the world through their eyes. Whilst Covid-19 still lingers over us for another December let's remind our selves of the many languages of learning our children have embarked on this year.
100 Languages in 12 Months- One photo for each month
January
After a Tier 4 Christmas 2020 our children came back in January eager to see their friends and explore. Nursery remained open throughout the January lock down and outdoor learning was as always, a priority. We jumped straight back into the year with a chill as the children explored the natural ice with power paint pipettes and brushes.
February
What is love? Snow stayed with us to Valentines Day as we focused on what love means, how it feels and what it looks like. At Nursery we focused on the beauty of learning from mistakes, and how our children seek meaning in everything they do. Check out our blog from February this year. https://inspirationsnurseries.co.uk/news/the-art-studio/
March
March saw our new pond thriving- A new project to invite natural wildlife into our setting and support the natural eco-system.
This also provided a wonderful learning opportunity as the children watched the life cycle of a frog unfold in front of them.
April
Sun spills into the art studio and the newly developed decking as their interest in flowers and growth develops. The toddlers embraced their forest school garden and there was a focus on raising confident learners.
Our Pre-schoolers took to the streets to litter pick, making Horsforth a cleaner place.
- https://youtu.be/5N-yULXVwjk
May
More developments happened in the Spring, a new outdoor classroom was built in the toddler room with shelter from the rain. The Art Studio decking was also upgraded with a rain cover, insulation and under floor heating.
Forest School spent longer hours in the woods making the most of the seasonal changes- check out our blog from one of our sessions -https://inspirationsnurseries.co.uk/news/spring-time-in-the-forest/
June
Whilst the Art Studio developments took place the buggy shed became a new pop up Art Studio. We also invited pre-school parents in for an open day parents evening where they experienced Forest School and the Art Studio and learnt about the Reggio Approach to learning.
July
In July we took the art studio sessions into the woods along with some mirrors to give some new perspective. The walk of art gave the children chance to showcase our forest school song -
August
The were some more changes within nursery as Tara stepped into her new training role, Sophie became Hedgehog Baby room leader and Becki became Butterflies Baby room leader. All three are flourishing in their new roles.
September
End of an era for some of our children as we said goodbye to our school leavers as they embark on their next adventure. This also meant a few transition for some of our toddlers moving up to our outdoor pre-school setting.
October
Time to light the wood burning stove again and to the pumpkin patch we went to bring an array of pumpkins back to nursery.
November
In November we celebrated Diwali and Bonfire night throughout all of our rooms. This was an exciting month for pre-school as Forest School Rachel stepped into the role of Pre-School Room leader.
December
The month we all came together for our Christmas party. And here we are again, a whole year later, and have you seen a cuter snowman? The children crafted this snowman last week using clay, wire and felt for the scarf.
This year we have seen some big developments to our onsite forest school, our new outdoor classrooms and the pond. We continue to have our amazing group of committed staff and we are excited to welcome more in the New Year as our nursery growth continues. But the biggest developments we have seen this year is in the children. There is no limit to their capabilities, curiosity and positivity through what has once again been a challenging but rewarding year.
Here's our festive video from last year. So with just one week to go, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from us all at Inspirations Nurseries and Forest School.
https://youtu.be/y_6UFaNqbx0
2021 in the Art Studio
Looking back over another year in the Art Studio reminds me how every year of learning is completely different to the previous one, and that's the beauty of a child led setting.
The Art Studio is Reggio Emilia inspired space for the 3 and 4 year olds. They come in smaller groups to extend any areas of learning interests through all kinds of expressive arts. It is a purpose built wooden structure set behind the yurt where the children's voice forms the basis for each following weeks planning and activities. Because of this there is no way of knowing what subjects will be explored and what questions shall be raised by the children. But one thing i do know is; the combination of their imagination and curiosity, and the art studio's extensive creative supplies of art, music and visuals makes for a thousand possibilities.
Here's just some of what we got up to this year-
The year started with an interest in creating structures. I noticed the children using clay, magnets and loose parts to build spaces. This lead onto an interest in castles and 3D shapes which lead the children to compare materials.
As early spring set in the children noticed changes to our trees and the first sign of growth. This was to lead onto a 7 month project exploring plants, flowers and trees, but also lead us to look at different artists and styles of painting. Van Gogh's sunflowers inspired us to try new ways of painting, as we studied Blossom, Sunflowers and Dandelions.
'The branches are little paths'
The growth interest lasted the entire Spring and Summer, we dissected plants and vegetables as the children experimented with their own ideas of the hypothesis of the journey from seed to plant. In the Autumn as the trees started changing they became a topic of interest which lead to a tree structure being built from floor to ceiling.
Throughout all of these group interests, individual interests are happening simultaneously and woven throughout each art session. Here's just a snippet of this years creativity-
Don't forget to check out our Art Studio video on Youtube-
-Nathalie
https://youtu.be/4-59qb9GgdQ
Risky Play
Why do we advocate risky play at Inspirations?
‘Encouraging children to enjoy challenges rather than to shy away from them, could also increase their persistence and learning abilities.’ - (Dweck 2000)
We are reading more and more to support this view in the paper and in the news. Children are becoming so mollycoddled and protected that certain traits like independence, resilience, creativity and confidence are being eroded away. It is this erosion of critical life skills that has driven Inspirations move towards our Reggio Emilio inspired approach to learning and our Forest School ethos. Both pedagogies allow for environments rich in learning opportunities including those gained from taking risks and learning to manage those risks.
So, what is risky play?
Risky play is how we allow, encourage even, our children to explore, examine and play within areas, or with equipment, which could be determined as carrying a measured level of risk. Examples of risky play within our Nursery environment would show themselves particularly within our Forest school ethos where children are encouraged to climb, slip and slide in mud, traverse small streams, swing on rope swings and use tools such as hammers and potato peelers for whittling wood.
Of course, measured risk is not limited to our Forest School children, our babies and toddlers have balance beams to traverse, uneven ground to manoeuvre through and even nettles which are purposefully left within our garden as part of our measured risky play policy.
How does risky play help build more resilient, independent confident children?
Taking measured risk gives children the opportunity to fail, learn and adapt processes. It naturally encourages children to be determined and resilient to failure, which in turn shows them the flip-side of failure: success!
It is a beautiful thing to observe children helping their friends, problem solving together, building up their teamwork and communicative skills and showing such compassion, support and encouragement to one another during particularly challenging moments. The beauty is, that each child understands that they may be the supportive one on this occasion, next time though it could be them needing the support of their peers!
Obviously failing can be a stressful, uncomfortable feeling, one which as adults we can fully understand. But it is important that our children are able to manage their stress and know that they have the skills and understanding to overcome it. It's important that they realise it is a temporary state of mind that, once managed and overcome can in fact lead to great success.
Here at Inspirations children can traverse manageable challenges and are able to experience small levels of temporary fear and stress finding they have ways of overcoming it. This leads to adults who have a balanced view and approach to risk.
Risky play should not be…
..Dangerous! You may have noticed throughout this blog I have consistently used the word measured. This word is paramount when talking about any risk but particularly so when working alongside children. At Inspirations our risk assessments are carried out on a daily basis whether they be in written form or within our day-to-day observations of children’s play and interactions with each other.
We are constantly assessing the levels of risk and putting in place management strategies for those risks. This may be as simple as ‘it’s too windy to go into the woods today as hanging dead wood may fall off trees’ to 'that piece of equipment is looking worn and needs fixing or replacing'. At all times you can rest assured our team of highly qualified educators are adept and assessing and keeping our children safe whilst at the same time offering all the joys and learning opportunities of MEASURED risky play! Win, win…
