CONTRIBUTORS


thought she had much in common with him. Steiner expressed enthusiasm for the McMillans and discussed their ideas about the power of the imagination. Montessori had been influenced by Itard and Seguin for reasons similar to Margaret’s intrigue, but Montessori’s perspective wasn’t as influential.


“She (Margaret McMillan) had made extensive trips abroad to observe


the experimental work of other educationalists and had extensively studied the work and writings of Fredrich Froebel and Edouard Seguin among others.“ (McMillan Legacy Group, 1999, p. 28). Seguin’s work with children who had disabilities caught her imagination, particularly because of his utopian socialist ideals.


Liebovitch (2019) suggests that Margaret was strongly influenced by a


Froebelian view of childhood, which opposed the Victorian strictness of being seen and not heard. She valued “the years of great opportunity” (McMillan1900, p.3). Froebel had opened the first outdoor kindergartens, and his structured play provided opportunities for children to become in tune with nature. His view was both spiritual and practical, but pre-dated progressive thinking that focused more on pragmatic developmental views that enabled children to be directors of their own play (Bruce 1987, p.16). Margaret’s views were shaped by the curative, spiritual, nature- embedded, moral, aesthetic, Christian, developmental, and health and hygiene, strands of thinking. Interestingly, the sisters’ focus on helping children living in poverty, and social justice, did not mean that they thought that other children would not benefit from nursery education.


References and further reading Bruce, T. (1987). Early Childhood Education. London: Hodder Education. Froebel, F. (1826). Education of Man. Courier Corporation reprint 2012. Hendrick, H. (1997). Children, childhood and English society. Cambridge University Press. Liebovich, B. (2019). Margaret McMillan’s Contributions to Cultures of Childhood. Educational Studies Department, Goldsmiths University of London. Liebovich, B. (2018). The McMillan Sisters, The Roots of the Open-Nursery, and Breaking the Cycle of Poverty. Social & Education History, vol. 7, no. 1.


McMillan, M. (1930). The Nursery School. London: J. M. Dent & Sons McMillan Legacy Group (1999). The children can’t wait: The McMillan Sisters and the birth of nursery education. London: Deptford Forum Publishing Ltd.


Mellor, M. (1950). Education through experience in the infant school years. Oxford: Blackwell. Skolnick, A. (1975). The limits of childhood: Conceptions of child development and social context. 39 Law and Contemporary Problems, 38-77. Steedman, C. 1990. Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain: Margaret McMillan 1860–1931. London: Virago Press. Whitbread, N. (1972). The evolution of the nursery-infant school. London: Routledge.


Socially distanced science


lessons Keeping practical and interesting science lessons available for students while maintaining safe distances and minimising opportunities for contamination is the new challenge facing teachers. In her regular column this month, Stemtastic founder KIRSTY BERTENSHAW takes a look at some options you can try.


Outside learning opportunities make social distancing easier. The national curriculum includes knowledge of common plants and the ability to identify them using a key. School fields and outside spaces offer a chance to use identification keys to learn the names of common plants in the school environment. Identification keys purchased from school suppliers are usually plastic-coated to prevent damage by rain, so can be easily wiped down with disinfectant before and after use. If these keys aren’t available, there are many keys available online to print. These can then be laminated to allow cleaning and reuse or kept as single use sheets where students can keep a tally of the number of species found in an area.


Seasonal and weather changes can be observed and recorded each day as practical investigative science. Recorded data can then be presented as pictographs or in other forms to compliment numeracy lessons too.


Plants feature heavily in the national curriculum, and seeds and bulbs can be planted and observed each day. Bulbs planted in glass jars (washed on a hot cycle in the dishwasher) are perfect for allowing students to see the growth of roots. Fast growing seeds such as cress can be germinated on wet kitchen roll. These observations can be made from afar, or each student can have their own small set of seeds to observe closely. For example, cress seeds can be grown in an empty half of an eggshell, after washing well. Alternatively, plants can be planted in spaced out large areas outside to allow for more students to observe the changes.


Light is a topic that is normally taught in a practical way, sharing equipment. Students can still explore light with a little more planning, and cleaning of equipment between uses. Torches and prisms are the best way to split light into a rainbow, which can still be achieved in small groups, spread out, with no sharing of equipment. Shadows can be explored by placing objects outside at the correct orientation to cast a shadow. Children can then place a piece of paper in the shadow and draw around the shadow to compare the shape of shadows to the shape of the objects casting them.


Sundials can be built on a large scale outside to ensure social distancing when reading off the sundial. A post or short piece of wood can be sunk into the grass, at a minimum of knee height on an adult. Alternatively, a post can be placed in a large planter, or even use a post already outside. Observe the shadow of the post every hour on the hour and mark the location of the shadow accordingly on the ground. Test it again the next day see if the markings are correct. The shadow locations will change through the seasons, so this can be returned to and repeated in different terms.


Laminated pictures of animals are easier to disinfect than plastic figures, so for classification activities laminated pictures can be sorted into groupings and resorted, especially if produced on small cards in multiple sets so students can have a set each. The sets of cards can then be collected in a bag for disinfection later.


Often avoided in classrooms, videos can provide a good alternative to practical science that can’t currently be safely carried out, including Ted Ed videos among others.


Kirsty is the founder of STEMtastic, an education consultancy with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths www.stemtastic.co.uk


June 2020 www.education-today.co.uk 15


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