In the garden there's monsters!' says Ziggy. He is talking to the children's minister and showing her his book with photographs of his friends and pictures he's drawn.
'Does everyone know about the monsters?' asks Beverley Hughes.
'Yes, I've been chased by them!' replies an excited Ziggy.
'Thank you for showing me your photographs,' says the minister.
Ziggy's book, or learning journey, could soon take on an online dimension as a Facebook-style blog shared by children, parents and practitioners, if one of the projects being piloted in Hertfordshire takes off.
Oak Tree Children's Centre in Welwyn Garden City is one of several children's centres in Hertfordshire involved in piloting the 0-7 partnership, designed to improve transitions for children moving from pre-school settings into school and from reception into Key Stage 1. The aim is also to improve quality provision and coherent practice across different types of settings and services, including childcare providers, Sure Start Children's Centres, schools and health services.
The county is divided into 82 children's centre communities and within each centre there is a cluster of schools, private and voluntary providers and childminders.
The pilot ties in with bringing more play-based learning into Key Stage 1.
Sally Orr, head of early years and childcare at Hertfordshire County Council, says of the pilot, 'We made sure that any of the projects we thought of also engaged primary schools as well, and one of the keys to success with that was doing it in a very targeted local area because people have great commitment to their community. So we used children's centres as a starting point.'
Team work
Today Oak Tree is buzzing with activity. Beverley Hughes is spending the morning on a whirlwind tour meeting children, practitioners and parents to see at first hand how the project is developing.
Oak Tree gained children's centre status in 2007 but its origins are in Ludwick Nursery School, which opened in the 1950s and moved to the current site in 1986.
The nursery school was graded Outstanding by Ofsted last year and the centre has just reached its full core offer.
Head of centre Karen James says the area is one of the most deprived wards in Hertfordshire, and 'we have a lot of vulnerable children in our catchment area'.
As well as the nursery school the centre has on site a private nursery, Squirrels Daycare, also graded Outstanding in its last Ofsted inspection. Owner Jo Kavakeb, who trained as an NNEB, has an early years degree and has recently gained Early Years Professional Status, initiated the link between Ludwick Nursery School and Squirrels. Ms Kavakeb has a second nursery in Broxbourne, which is also part of a children's centre.
Oak Tree is on a large site and the children benefit from an extensive playground and outdoor space and move freely between the nursery school and the daycare during the day.
The three- and four-year-olds access their free entitlement in the nursery school and spend any hours on top of that in the daycare setting, essentially just moving into another room in the same building. The daycare and nursery school staff all work as one team, with shared space and a shared staff room. As Ms James says, 'These are all our children.'
The thriving centre is home to a number of other groups - Saturdads, which meets monthly, a toy library, which has just signed up its hundredth member, and Baby Acorns, a weekly group for expectant mothers and those with very young babies, which runs alongside a well-being clinic run by health visitors.
There is also a family worker and outreach worker, who Ms James says 'work with our most vulnerable families in their own homes, including supporting bedtime routines.'
We are taken to meet Sonia Corbett and Emma-Jane Daniels, two members of the childminding group that meets every Monday at the centre.
Sonia says, 'I'm here without fail every Monday. Facilities-wise, it's fantastic.' As we talk, some of the children they care for are happily playing in the sandpit in the sunshine. Sonia says the childminders work together to help each other out when they hear of parents who need places - 'Someone's always got a space.'
In another room we are taken to meet key workers in the enrichment group for children who have severe communication difficulties and autism. The three- and four-year-olds are referred by speech and language therapists. They receive support from specialist teachers on site, but are integrated into the mainstream nursery. Ms James says, 'One of the parents said they thought they would never hear their child talk, and because of this they have.'
There are also PAT (Pets as Therapy) dog sessions for children with speech and language problems and autism.
In the family room, Beverley Hughes meets a group of parents and is keen to hear how the centre is helping them. Diane, a mother of five, whose youngest child is a year old, talks about the courses she's taken. 'I've done hygiene, healthy eating and now I'm doing first aid with my son. If it wasn't for the centre we wouldn't achieve what we've learned. I've come out a better person from what I've achieved. Any course that comes up, I'm there.'
Natasha, who has a three-year-old boy, says, 'I'm starting to do an NVQ here. One of the members of staff approached me and asked me if I wanted to do it.'
Easy riders
As part of the 0-7 pilot, the centre is encouraging parents to walk and cycle to school. Oak Tree won the School Travel Award earlier this year from Hertfordshire County Council for encouraging families and young children to walk or cycle to the centre.
Karen James says, 'One of our children made the headlines because he's two and he can ride a two-wheeler without stabilisers.'
Nursery teacher Sue Duglan adds, 'A lot of the children come on scooters. We put ribbons on the lampposts and trees so that children can see them as they come towards the centre.'
The centre also has a park-and-ride scheme set up with a nearby church for parents who live further away.
Hertfordshire is one of the five 0-7 partnerships taking part in the 'buddying' pilots, introduced in 30 local authorities last September with the aim of sharing learning and practice among a range of settings and schools.
Lucy Connolly, early years team leader at Hertfordshire County Council, explains, 'What we tried to do was link them together but not duplicate the projects. Buddying and 0-7 in Hertfordshire are working really well together and supporting different communities in different ways.'
Assessment in the Early Years Foundation Stage using children's learning journeys is one of the areas the 'buddying' project is covering in three local children's centres.
Ms Connolly says, 'If you're a childminder, what does assessment look like? It's not about taking notes for hours on end, it's about how to capture what children are learning and what they need to do next.' This includes children's learning journals. 'That links into our e-learning journey (see box), which is very exciting and once we get it going everyone will want it. It's about parents being involved, adding to their children's learning and records in an e-learning platform.'
Start to Play is also tied in with the 0-7 pilot, 'making everyone in the community aware that they're responsible, including the families, for keeping our children as fit as we can.' Alongside this are healthy eating initiatives to show parents how they can feed children well on a budget.
Great potential
Beverley Hughes is noticeably impressed by what she has seen. 'The outstanding commitment and work here is palpable,' she says. 'Just getting the children's centre in place, the basic elements of the core offer, is just the beginning. There is so much more potential.'
She says that the work in the Hertfordshire pilot with early intervention is pioneering and 'just as relevant for schools as under-fives. We always knew the children's centre movement were pioneers, and they're pioneers for a much larger chunk of the sector than just the early years.
'Sir Jim Rose's review on primary education was looking at how Year 1 starts to adopt some of the methodology of the Early Years Foundation Stage, and that's about the transition from early years settings into primary schools, so this fits completely.'
What of the future? The DCSF is in the process of choosing who is going to evaluate the ten pilots, which run until March 2011. What happens next will depend on the Comprehensive Spending Review and who is in Government.
Sally Orr adds, 'The key thing is to make sure that we build something that is sustainable whatever happens' so that very vulnerable children start to benefit from joined-up services and innovative ideas and ensuring that children's centres and early years services really are accessed by the most vulnerable children and families.
Beverley Hughes is adamant about what really matters. 'Ultimately it's got to come through in outcomes for children and that has to show in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results and into primary school.'
For further information go to www.childrens-centres.org/07Partnerships/default.aspx
0-7 PARTNERSHIP PILOT: HERTFORDSHIRE'S FIVE MODELS
The pilot was launched in January 2009 and runs until March 2011. The five models have been developed with input from a range of partners.
Model 1: Children's spaces
This is a regeneration project based in Broxbourne, working with Greenfield Children's Centre in Waltham Cross and local schools to look at ways of improving children's use of outside spaces by clearing up, revamping and improving the environment to make their journeys to school and children's centres safe and enjoyable.
The idea was triggered by talking to children about what they think about the routes they take and how they feel about rubbish and graffiti. Buggi Buddies is part of this project, encouraging parents to help children to use their buggies less and walk or cycle to nursery and school. Partners include Groundwork Trust, Enfield Borough Council and Broxborne Borough Council, the Environment Department and the Playbuilder Project.
Model 2: Accredited Leadership
Starting with 30 places in September 2009, the University of Hertfordshire is running a post-graduate certificate in professional learning, the first cross-agency leadership course. The course is open to experienced professionals who are non-graduates and is equivalent to 60 points at Masters level. The course is open to everyone in the children's workforce working with children aged 0-7 in Hertfordshire and will recruit a mix of candidates from health, social care and education. It is fully-funded by Hertfordshire County Council, which will provide supply cover for the part-time course, running on Fridays until May 2010. Apply by 17 July.
For more information: www.hertsdirect.org/younginherts
Model 3: Earliest intervention for vulnerable babies
The pilot is based in Hitchin and will work with Oughton Children's Centre and midwives, health visitors and GPs to offer early support and help to expectant mothers and parents of vulnerable babies. The pilot also aims to challenge the perception of who is vulnerable - for example, a 42-year-old mother who has post-natal depression and a baby with Down's syndrome. Another aim is to reduce obesity in pregnancy, a risk factor for complications during pregnancy and birth, which is related to socio-economic deprivation.
Peartree ward in Hertfordshire is the fourth most deprived ward in the county and also has the highest birth rate in the Welwyn-Hatfield District. The community-based pregnancy support programme will be open to all expectant mothers, who will receive advice from a dietician on how to avoid excessive weight gain during pregnancy. Smoking cessation, breastfeeding promotion, and in some cases counselling, will be offered.
Model 4: Parent partners in BME communities
The pilot is based in St Albans and Hemel Hempstead, working closely with Alban Way and Worldshapers Children's Centres to increase the take-up of early years services among Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, including the Pakistani and Bangladeshi and Traveller communities. It will also engage existing groups - for example, raising awareness of the free entitlement among an Asian women's group, over-50s group and grandparents and extended family groups. Another aspect is working with early years settings and schools to improve the welcome to BME communities and using Persona doll training to raise awareness about diversity. The project also involves distributing diverse sets of books to children's centres which will be used as group readers in school, so that hard-to-reach groups will have experience of them before children start school. There is also a Traveller support service and play project that visits the traveller site in Hemel Hempstead to distribute toys and books.
Model 5: The Learning Journey
The aim is to translate the hard copy 'scrapbook' children use as their learning journey in pre-school settings, combined with the health visitor's 'red book', to produce an online e-learning version for the child to share with parents and practitioners which will continue into school.
The project is in the early stages, but the idea is that it will be similar to Facebook with a shared blog parents and carers can add posts to. The parent will have ownership of the child's 'page' and will invite practitioners to join. For example, Callum spent Saturday playing football with his granddad, and his parents have uploaded a photo which they e-mail to the practitioner, who will then use it as a basis for potential learning. This is already happening with learning platforms in schools and it is planned to adapt it for nought-to-fives. It will be adapted by IT consultants RM and will be piloted from September 2009 in one children's centre. The project has potential to go nationwide for all ages from 0-19.