Features

Enabling Environments: Outdoors - Open minds

A grant-funded outdoor space was made to order according to the nursery children's wishes and needs. Ruth Thomson takes a look around.

Sunrise Nursery in Winsford, Cheshire, has transformed its outdoor space after securing grants worth £18,000 and consulting the children about what they wanted from the area.

The 60-place nursery, within Wharton Children's Centre and run by Overhall Community Enterprises, had an undeveloped garden and wide open spaces that left children free to bomb around uninterrupted on bikes which left the area feeling unwelcome.

Nursery staff started making plans for the space while they were involved in a communication, language and literacy (CLLD) project, in which they were asked to assess how CLLD could be promoted outdoors.

They went on to consult the children about what they wanted in the garden and designed it with the help of centre pedagogue Sue Jones and Greenerspaces Ltd (see box).

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