Investigating the impact of the nursery school environment on young children’s learning, development and wellbeing. Researching the effect and responses of environmental changes on children’s play, self-initiated learning and levels of engagement. An element of this reaching will be recording and documenting children’s voice – expressing their thoughts about their environment. Extensive consultation with governors, SLT, staff and parents will also contribute to findings.  A global view of the environment will be gathered, both internal and external environments; physical opportunities; wellbeing and emotional responses; organisation and aesthetics; diversity of resources and opportunity. The paper will document and evaluate concrete changes made to the environment and their impact. Research will also focus on developing a rigorous methodology for auditing early year’s environments. The research is informed by an action research format – Reflecting on the current environment – Planning/ Identifying – Implementation/ trailing – Observation/analysis – Reflecting/evaluation.

Update:

Pete Moorhouse has recently been accorded Honorary Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol. He will be working in collaboration with the university,  using their research and library facilities. He has also been invited to an Early Year’s conference in Japan to discuss creativity and woodwork. As part of this he will be visiting Schools in Japan which will also feed into his current research.