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Education is
the foundation stone of my philosophy for childcare. High House has
mentored and taught students, from all backgrounds and
experience for 22 years.
Knowledge is the key to understanding our
children.
This encapsulates my belief in the education
of Children.
High House
A brief
history
Early 1980’s the importance of good quality
Child Care was becoming a major part of the Government agenda. Mrs
Thatcher the Prime minister gave a famous pledge that every tiny
child had the right to high standards in care. The Government were
trying to encourage Mothers back to work after they had had
children, or when their children were old enough to attend school.
I was a teacher in a Secondary school in the
East End of London; I had seen the deprivation and the poverty first
hand. I observed children leaving their lessons, and missing school,
to care for their brothers or sisters. Most families of the time
relied heavily on relatives, or untrained and unlicensed friends or
strangers to care for their children.
I attended London University for a diploma
course, one of the first in its time, aimed at teachers who wanted
to create the child development teaching in schools. Gradually I
became involved in creation of the exam syllabus for teenagers that
developed into the Child Care curriculum of today.
I was both interested and involved in the
schemes designed to help women to understand the importance of child
care and education, believing that both were an integral part of
progress within society for Mothers, Fathers, and their children.
Thus training has always been a foundation stone of my beliefs when
caring for children. I trained the older children in my care in
Schools to go into Nurseries and playgroups, and work with, and
learn from, the adults and children around them.
I saw examples of excellent pre school care, I
also saw examples of appalling conditions, there seemed to be little
concern or consideration at that time for quality, quantity seemed
to be more important. There was an excellent scheme for Pre School
playgroups, these were run by Mothers for the benefit of their own
children and for those in the community around them, These were
often very good, but limited, the times were usually half days only,
and the care was spasmodic in quality. Education within care, at
that time, was virtually non existent.
Vanessa my daughter had been very fortunate to
attend a Nursery near our home in London. It was run by a trained
early year’s professional, a rare sight in those days. The Nursery
was outstanding.
I remember an anecdote the head teacher told
me, she said you must always be very clear with children, an
incident that day had shown her how easy an error could occur.
She had brought some Daffodils from the garden
for the children to observe – with a view to the child painting the
flowers.
She had talked about the flowers, they had
smelt them, touched them and felt their stems. Then she said “ Now
we will paint them” 99% of the children picked up their brushes and
their paper and tried to represent the flower on their page, except
one little boy, he picked the flower up and carefully painted each
leaf and petal, he was doing what he had understood her to have
said. I learnt a great deal from that simple example, to always
explain at the child’s level whatever it was that I needed to be
done. To always check that I had been understood, this has helped
both in teaching adults and children throughout my life.
There were no Nurseries at all in our local
area, the only option was childminders or playgroup.
That was when I decided to open a Nursery.
I was determined that the high quality of care
I had seen at my daughter’s Nursery in London, could be replicated
out in the villages, why should these standards only be available if
one happened to live in the city?
The Montessori ideas have stood the test
of time and are fantastic. Her beliefs in basic good manners,
respect for each other, teachers and the environment, such a simple
concept, with such basic methods for implementation. The ideas of
children asking to join with each other, of using please and thank
you, of inviting play and sharing through negotiation, rather than
simply expecting the partner/play companion to give you a share in
their activity/time. The ideas of learning basic tasks, cleaning
shoes, polishing tables, washing up, things that we take for granted,
are being taught, the child learns how to do something, without
withholding the opportunities for self discovery. These
opportunities are all around, in the play materials and in the
activities chosen by the child. The furniture and the toys are based
around practical ideas, the furniture is child sized, common now,
but in the past, something that was not considered to be very
important.
We were full in 6 months, with a waiting list. I remember the
local inspector coming to see me, she was shocked that we allowed
children to count beyond 5, The prescriptive regime that was being
laid on the playgroups at that time forbade children from knowing
any numbers beyond 5, I remember protesting, that they had 10
fingers, so the ban seemed senseless, but I was reprimanded for
continuing with our “Mathsland” as we called it. I believed that
children were failing in mathematics because of the poor teaching in
schools. As a failed mathematician myself I felt that touching,
feeling and counting allowed children to absorb the facts that
numbers were all around them, the size of the trees the shape of a
leaf, the steps in a stairway, the hops in a skipping rope, all were
maths and every opportunity should be taken with children to
encourage and develop their innate understanding of the math that
was all around them, in their everyday lives. It was not something
that you learnt from worksheets – your sense of space, time and
number should come from your environment, and once you have that
real understanding, and then develop the finer aspects at a later
date. We developed our number work in that way, and it was very
successful.
We were one of the first Nurseries to introduce
computers to children. We had some simple programs, one called Pod,
that we used to encourage social interaction and language, two of
the relationships that had been criticised by those not
understanding the world of computers. It was assumed that using the
computer would be a solitary experience, whereas we used it with
small and large groups, as well as allowing the children to use it
themselves. I had studied a computer course in London, one of the
first aimed at actually using the machine to encourage and teach,
rather than program, as had been done before. Children shared,
discussed, laughed and enjoyed the experience, an innovation in its
time.
Due to the demand for Nursery places we needed
to move the nursery to new premises. The local area, once again,
proved to be very difficult to locate anything suitable.
Eventually we contacted the airport to see if
they had anything we could rent, albeit on a temporary basis, and
High House was offered to us, at that time a derelict farmhouse with
grass that came over the heads of my children.
The Nursery has grown since then, but always
with the ethos of education at its heart. My daughter Vanessa has
proved to be an outstanding Director, with energy and enthusiasm to
take the Nursery forward to a new era. She has some brilliant ideas
developed from her research in Italy and is always ready to evaluate
and use new innovations, without losing the original philosophy on
which the foundations were laid.. I am very very proud of her.
Mrs Gibson,
(above right) the Nursery Founder, is one of the five Nationwide
finalists in the NMT awards for Lifetime Achievement in Nursery
Education .
(Far right
Vanessa Callan B.Sc. PGCE High House Nursery Director)
Well we didn't win the award, but to have achieved
the final 4 Nationwide was a major success. These are some pictures
of the actual event itself.
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Learning
about Lambs!!
