NURSERY SCHOOLS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 62

NURSERY SCHOOLS.

In Ireland, the priests who care for the poor children say that if they may have the first seven years of a child’s life, they will rest in peace about its future. They are more than right, for it is now definitely established that.those first seven years are the most important of all. In those early impressionable years we learn, though often unconsciously, and absorb more than we ever do afterwards, and the pattern of our later lives results more from the kindly or unkindly influences of those years than many of us imagine.

For this reason alone the Nursery School movement should be encouraged. The nursery school cares for the very young child during those tender years when he is not fit for school proper. At one time it was thought that only a small nursery school could prove satisfactory, and certainly there is much to be said for it, as only in a small school is the home-like and personal atmosphere at all possible. Nevertheless, experience proves that the size of the school is best regulated by the needs of each district. Liverpool, for instance, is allowing accommodation for 200 children in its nursery school. Bolton is building a large school, and contemplating two more on the same generous scale in the near future. The L.C.C. is building two schools for the East End of London — where they are so badly needed—one at Stepney and another at Bethnal Green. Each of these will accommodate 150 children.

Happily, all the new nursery schools are of the open-air type. This means that whenever weather permits, the children take lessons, games, and their little rations of food and sleep out of doors. Many of the new schools are on the qrfadrangle plan, with three or four shelters built round a playground or garden. Some are what are known as the “ village ” type, with each shelter accommodating about 40 children. The village type is considered excellent because it combines the advantages of the small and large school. Though the the children of the whole “village ” may meet in the playground, each shelter is like a separate school.

The first of all open-air nursery schools was started by the Misses Rachel and Margaret M’Millan, just before the war.

Since then, many types of nursery schools have sprung into being. The aim of a nursery school as we know it to-day are set forth in the Board of Education Regulations, as follows: “A nutsery school or class is an institution providing for the care and training of young children aged from two to five years, whose attendance at such a day school is necessary or desirable for their healthy physical and mental development. It has therefore a two-fold function; first, the close personal care and medical supervision of the individual child, involving provision for its comfort, rest, and suitable nourishment; and secondly, definite training—bodily, mental, and social—■ involving the cultivation of good habits in the widest sense, under guidance and oversight of a skilled, intelligent teacher, and the orderly association of children of various ages in common games and occupations.” Such ideals are surely worth fostering! The Nursery School movement deserves to go forward and prosper. The movement in its infancy is so promising a one, that it seems quite certain that the nursery schools of to-morrow will be even more charged with great possibilities. A side issue well worthy of consideration is the admirable training ground such schools should prove for adolescent girls. Helping to look after children in these schools under qualified supervision is an ideal preparation for those hoping to become children’s nurses or teachers or even hospital nurses, and as many of these girls may be regarded also as potential mothers, such experience from all points of view would be invaluable. —Answers,