Nursery World - Learning & Development: Mixed-age Settings

More early years settings are glad they let children of different ages mingle together through the day. They tell Annette Rawstrone why.

Mayhem was envisaged when Julie White and her staff team first discussed turning Bents Farm Day Nursery near Halifax into a mixed-age open plan setting. 'We pictured 60 children on the move and didn't know how we'd cope,' says Ms White. 'But we have been working this way since May and it is not chaos. It is very relaxed, because the children have more space, freedom and choice and they are more calm and independent. It is a lovely atmosphere - I keep wondering why we didn't do it earlier.'

Birth to Five consultant and trainer Sally Thomas says the norm for early years settings being organised into age groups has fed down from the age grading in schools. She believes they should stop thinking like primary schools when caring for under-fives.

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