Introduction

The key focus for the project is to:

• Develop a relationship between the nursery and our community (Parents and volunteers).
• To help parents feel more involved in their child’s learning.
• To improve the learning experience for the children
• To help staff improve skills by working alongside the community and partners.

This is an important project to our setting, as we value the importance of learning outdoors. We have a garden area that is underused, and we would like to develop this space with the help of the community alongside the children. Due to COVID restrictions the settings relationship with our community has been affected.

As part of the research, I will be using research from Fredrich Froebel around the importance of parents feeling part of the community, and the benefit community learning has for the children.

Context

Prior to starting the project, the nursery had been given an extra garden area close to our setting. The space is an open area partly surrounded by overgrowth. There is a Polycrub on the site which has not been used. The staff have little gardening knowledge but are enthusiastic to learn and develop the space alongside the children and our community. For the project the community has been defined by who the children have suggested that can help them. The setting has garden areas attached to the building which are often set up daily by staff. They can often be used as areas to burn off energy during parts of the days, as well a space to learn and play. We have staff trained in forest schools, the children visit local woods regularly and experience the natural world, den building, climbing trees, ponds, and streams. The main aim of developing this garden is to encourage our community to help develop the area, to build stronger relationships, to deepen children’s learning by learning from people they are close to, and to build skills and knowledge for everyone involved. To have an area to grow our own food that we can eat for snack. Children can experience planting and growing flowers, to learn about mini beasts, and the part they play in nature.

Gardening is something I have little experience with, and I am learning at the same time as the children. Since I have little knowledge around developing the garden, I have had to seek advice from local gardeners in our community and they have volunteered to help by giving advice and coming along to our open day with parents. The project is based mainly outdoors therefore the time of year is important for planting and growing and unfortunately our climate can hinder this process.

I have been promoting this project for several months amongst my colleagues and have found a team member who is enthusiastic about Froebel’s thoughts and ways of learning, she is keen to help lead the project. She also knows little about gardening but is excited to learn with the children and build the community with the parents.

Methodology

It is important to me that the children are at the centre to the development. That their voices, thoughts, and contributions shape the project and how it is developed. I plan to do this by using a journal to document the progress using photos, children’s drawings, writings, thoughts, and ideas. I plan to use feedback from those involved in the project, as well as observations.

This is a long-term project, so for the purpose of the study I will only report on the current progress. I plan to involve the community by initially inviting who the children have chosen to an open day. I will gather feedback from the parents anonymously. I then hope to develop the link by having regular volunteers to help develop the space alongside the staff and the children. I will receive feedback from the staff of how they felt prior to the garden development and how they feel while working with the community. Long term we hope to have regular open afternoons, inviting parents, grandparents, local community groups. I hope to work with P1 as our children who plant will be in P1 before some of the food is grown so it will be good to develop a link with P1 that they also use our garden and then the children experience the full planting cycle.

Initially we introduced the garden to the children with regular visits. The staff and the children took pictures and discussed the space. The children helped make a plan of what needed done: – fix the gate, pick up the rubbish, weeds needed pulled out. They talked about what they wanted to grow and who could help them. The children talked about how we could get people to help us. They decided to make invitations. The children made shopping lists and visited local garden centres, spoke to the shop keepers, they worked with the staff to prepare the garden for planting by pulling out weeds. The children then decided to incorporate other areas of learning within our setting and made plans to build a bird house. The children are fully engaged in the project and share what they have been doing with their parents. Lots of parents knew about the open day before we had sent out information as the children had already shared this at home.

Involving members of the public to work alongside the children I had to be aware of the nursery policies around Child protection and Ethics. Parents all received permission slips to ask if their child could be involved in the project. When inviting parents to the open day they were aware we were getting help from local gardeners and that they would be in the garden during the open day. Staff were aware they wouldn’t leave a child in nursery care unsupervised with adults not employed by the council. Parents attending the open day had responsibility for their own child.