The three-year-olds who attend Everton Nursery School and Family Centre make progress at a rate that seems, to an outsider, pretty close to miraculous.
When they start at the centre, they are, on average, around 16 to 20 months behind their peers. But by the time they reach 4, they are in line with, or even above, other children their age.
And while the children’s communication, reading and mathematical skills are impressive, headteacher Lesley Curtis emphasises that this Tes-award winning school in inner-city Liverpool is about so much more.
This a place where musicians from Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra regularly work with the children. “Literacy is very high,” says Curtis. “But they also have a good understanding of the world, expressive art and design, and personal, social and emotional development - schools will build on that.
“Sometimes in a primary school, the nursery and Reception classes can be infiltrated by top-down pressure from the national curriculum. Because this is a nursery school, we drive the pedagogy, we understand how children learn and recognise the next steps they need.”
That is part of the reason why the school won the Tes Schools Awards’ early years setting of the year prize this year, and has been given four consecutive “outstanding” ratings by Ofsted dating back to 2004 and why the staff’s expertise is sought out - not just locally but nationally and internationally, too.
The centre sits amid neat terraced houses, just minutes from a large park. It benefits from generous landscaped grounds, but this is no leafy suburb. Everton is the most deprived ward in Liverpool and 10,000 of the area’s residents are among the 1 per cent most disadvantaged in England.
Teaching the children of Everton requires in-depth planning and inspirational opportunities. So pupils are immersed in projects that involve them in the real world - not a theoretical version of it.
In the investigation room, four small children are togged up in safety goggles and aprons, sawing planks of wood with real saws - under supervision, of course.
“Our children use real tools, not plastic hammers,” Curtis says. “They can go home and share those skills with their grandparents. Granddads are often interested.”
In the food preparation room, six children are making a cake. The exercise involves practising communication skills, the maths of weighing ingredients and practical cooking.
And it doesn’t end there.
“We sell the cakes and biscuits in our café,” Curtis says. “And then buy more resources. Children are learning about how business works, how if you make something, sell it, you can then invest in a new bowl or spoon.”
Egg-citing endeavours
This real-world, holistic attitude continues in the school’s outside area. The eggs used in the cooking classes include some from the school’s own hens: Butterscotch, Fudge and Gertrude.
While many nursery schools’ pupils watch eggs hatch and see chickens grow, few of their children ask what happens to the chickens when they leave. Even fewer headteachers would, on a weekend visit to a garden centre, ask if the management would donate their display henhouse for free and then consult four-year-olds on how to set it up.
“We asked children where they wanted to place it - it was put [under a big tree] because of the shade,” Curtis says. “We also had to think about keeping out rats and birds.
“The children come in and feed the hens, they learn about caring for living creatures and about lifecycles.”
It is not just the outside space that is inspiring. Unusually, the nursery also has a large dining hall and its own swimming pool.
They are legacies of the site’s past and reminders of the patchwork way in which childcare and early years policy has developed in England over the years.
The school hall and adjoining kitchen remain from when the building housed Everton Park Primary School, which closed in 1997. Everton Road Nursery School moved into the buildings and in 1999 was joined on site by a separate social services day nursery.
The aim was to create a centre that integrated education, community, social services and health on one site. The swimming pool was paid for by the government’s Sure Start scheme, which between 1999 and 2003 funded integrated community facilities for children in disadvantaged areas all over the country.
By 2005, all services on the site were amalgamated and Curtis, who had been head of the school since 1999, became responsible for more than 1,000 under-5s in the centre’s catchment area.
Since then Everton has become a teaching school, providing initial teacher training, CPD and school-to-school support.
And now Curtis is working with others on a bid to set up alternative provision for four to 11-year-olds under the government’s free schools programme. The centre already provides alternative provision for five- and six-year-olds at risk of exclusion.
This willingness to reach out means that the centre’s work has had an impact on hundreds of pupils and teachers.
And at the heart of it all is Curtis’ conviction that nursery-aged children need something more substantial than merely a scaled-down primary curriculum.
Praise from the Tes awards’ judges and the “outstanding” rating from Ofsted are testament to Everton’s success.
But now Curtis is worried that the school’s achievements could be jeopardised by funding changes. Liverpool City Council used to fund full-time early education places for pupils in deprived areas but the cash has run out.
A new Department for Education scheme for children of working parents will pay for some full-time places from September. But this will only benefit around 40 per cent of the children at Everton nursery.
Funding for the rest will be limited to 15 hours a week. So the school must now look for other ways to pay for the remaining hours.
“To close a 32-month [development] gap in a year, we need them to be here all day,” says Curtis.
Her staff may be inspirational, resourceful and highly skilled - but they are not actual miracle workers.
@teshelen