Nestled between the high-rise buildings in London’s Royal Borough of Greenwich is a small oasis with a pond, a hill, large pine trees and an amphitheatre, all surrounding a series of classrooms known as ‘shelters’.
Children from the ages of two to four attending Rachel McMillan Nursery School and Children’s Centre in Deptford, south east London, start off the day in their own shelters before being free to roam the site, visiting friends in other shelters, playing in the sandpit or on the climbing frames – and even accessing a roof garden that sits on top of one of the shelters.
‘Each shelter is in a separate building – it’s like a little village,’ explains Theresa Lane, who has been the head teacher at England’s first ‘open air’ nursery for 11 years.
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