We've all been amazed at the breadth of learning gained from setting up a hospital corner in the nursery. It all started when one of our children was admitted to hospital for a short operation. When he returned to nursery he was happy to share his experiences with the other children. They were so interested that the staff set up a basic hospital corner with a bed, some role play outfits and a doctor's bag.
It was the children's first term and they were at the stage of forming relationships with each other and needed a lot of adult support. To begin with, they used the hospital corner for exploratory play, looked at the resources and took turns at playing with the doctor's bag.
Over the weeks the children's play became more sophisticated and complex and staff intervened sensitively. The children had freedom to play but staff helped develop their play by offering props or entering into it. Reference books, posters, relevant stories and songs were all introduced.
Parents took an active interest and were encouraged to spend time with staff and children in the playroom. Some parents came along when we took the interest a stage further by visiting the Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, which gave the children first-hand experience of a hospital. They saw how hospital staff help children feel at ease when they're admitted and looked at the beds and equipment including crutches and X-rays. They even watched one of our staff members having a stookie (plaster cast) put on her arm. The cast was brought back to nursery and put in the hospital corner for the children to play with, and we also added crutches after the children requested them.
One boy was particularly fascinated by the X-rays and, back at nursery, staff were sensitive to his interest by looking at animal, bird and leaf skeletons with him. The X-rays led to our investigating body parts and we had spin-off activities based around body movements - balance, bending and stretching - and dance. It also created an opportunity to discuss healthy eating and caring for our bodies.
With the children now having had so much input about hospitals, their role play was more independent and staff were able to make detailed observations. These observations helped us pick up on the interests of individual children.
The children adopted the roles of doctor, nurse, patient, visitor and ambulance driver and were in command of their play. Literacy and numeracy were evident at this stage and we added a reception area on to the hospital corner where children booked appointments, took telephone messages and wrote prescriptions. Get-well cards were made in the writing/craft area. They also charted patients' progress on clipboards, like they'd seen at the hospital.
Our community medical doctor faced a role reversal when she spent time in the hospital corner - the children were so confident in their play that they made her the patient!
Hospital play also moved into other areas of the nursery, with children building hospitals and ambulances in the brick area. They played out some dramatic scenarios, with people being 'dead' for quite a long time, and they created road accidents outdoors, which led to talks about road safety.
Discussions about how hospital staff worked night shifts developed into talking about other people who work at night, and even nocturnal animals. We've also watched the progress of a new hospital being built quite near the nursery.
The hospital play corner lasted for about three months, but even later in the year the children revisited their hospital play and asked for a doctor's bag for the home corner. One girl even convinced her mother to buy one to use at home with her siblings.
We found the hospital interest helped to develop children's confidence and also their empathy for the concerns and needs of others. It was a shared learning experience for the whole nursery with the children taking the lead. We documented the process with photographs, pictures and observations and staff can now look back and see the value of their work too.
Maureen Baker, headteacher at Children's House Nursery School, spoke to Annette Rawstrone