Visitors to any of three Baby Room nurseries in south London have to bend down to see display boards, which staff have lowered to child-height after completing a Froebel Travelling Tutor course from Early Education. This year the chain updated its approach in line with education principles of German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel. Developed with support from the Froebel Trust, the course aims to provide in-house tuition without requiring written work.
All 30 staff attended a one-day introduction in November. This included Froebel’s ideas about learning through nature and the importance of play. A month later, the group met for a second day. This covered Froebel’s theory of gifts – wooden blocks – and his ‘occupations’, or resources, including sticks, clay and scissors. ‘We had a chance to get down on the floor and play with blocks, and could see it was tailored to be open-ended play, as opposed to a pre-made resource where children’s creativity was limited,’ says manager Tatiana Carvalho.
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