Nursery World - Nursery Equipment: Enabling environments

Warwickshire local authority has showcased Enabling Environments for the under-threes in a bid to promote best practice. Ruth Thomson reports.

Enabling Environments, one of the four principles within the Early Years Foundation Stage, may now be part of the early years lexicon, but it still raises challenging questions for many settings. What does a 'top-quality' baby room look like? What are the essential features of a toddler room? What kind of layout and resources best meet the needs of two-year-olds?

With this in mind, Warwickshire Early Years Advisory Team created a series of three 'inspirational learning spaces': a baby room, a toddler room and a room for two-year-olds. The aim was to illustrate enabling environments, explain the essentials of best practice and give guidance to local settings on planning and the role of the adult. All the rooms were set up at Camp Hill Early Years Centre in Nuneaton, and here we feature details of the baby room and the main messages about best practice. On pages 9 and 10, we look at the toddlers and two-year-olds rooms.

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