Ilminster Avenue Nursery 4: exploring the locality in character

Written by artist Cat Boot

Today Mo appeared once again in Star class, where several children were already busy mark making on some paper maps that Kate had brought in. For many of the children, maps are inextricably linked to treasure, and there were crosses marked all over these maps. The children were also able to show me a ‘park’ and a ‘swimming pool’. Mo showed the children the map that they had created of the nursery on her previous visit, and then once again opened out a blank map, explaining she was lost. Although it had been my intention that we should fill this in once we arrived back from our trip, the children were keen to do this task straight away, and drew their ‘houses’ onto Mo’s map.


With a group of pre-agreed children, we set off on an expedition into the streets of Knowle, picking up several parents on our way out. The only thing we knew for certain was that we would visit Dexter’s house. From there on it would be up to the group to decide together where to go next.

As we left the building Mo asked “how do we walk through the nursery?”. Roman responded by demonstrating an exaggerated and purposeful walk, dutifully copied by Mo. Crossing the first road, I also noticed one of the children jumping across with both feet together.

D very proudly led the group to his house near to the nursery, with no help needed from his mum. He took his role as expedition leader very seriously.

D’s house has a short but steeply sloped front garden, which C explored by rolling down! This seemed appropriate and at the same time caused anxiety amongst the adults, who were nervously making jokes about risk assessments. When another child went to join in they were stopped. There was certainly a feeling of risk amongst the adults. It felt as though none of us not quite knew what the parameters for safety on this walk were - how much we should let the children instinctively explore and how much they needed our protection.


The next stop was O’s house, unusual to us as it had a caravan in the driveway. O demonstrated pride during the visit and was keen for us to get there and stop pausing to observe different textures and colours of wall.

One of O’s neighbours invited us to her garden to see some old drums she had planted out with flowers. O’s nan hadn’t met this woman before (though she only lived a few doors away). Although this was a strange encounter as again, none of the adults seemed quite sure what level of interaction was in/appropriate, there was certainly a feeling of community developing, both within the group and without.

From here S’s mum told us that their house wasn’t far away, although she needed O’s nan to help her get there as she didn’t know her way from where we were (only a few streets away). Again, as with the other children, S demonstrated pride in her home, and chatted to Kate more than she does in the nursery setting. We were also allowed through the gate into S’s garden to play on her trampoline. This felt very significant for S and her mum, who don’t normally engage much with the nursery or other families.


The final stop on our walk was Redcatch Park, where A led us to a bench where we could eat our snack, and the children explored the playground. Although the park is vast, the playground captured their attention from the moment we entered (backing up my earlier observations about ‘things’ rather than ‘space’). Mo asked the children “what happens over there?”, pointing to a large grassy area. One child replied “that’s where the dogs poo”.
Distance walked - 3 miles.

Threads for further investigation:

  • Feelings of community, belonging, pride
  • All the front doors are different! What lies behind each door?
  • Houses represent identity
  • C’s mum has a 24ft pool and hot tub in her garden!
  • The feeling of risk. This was the first time any school trip had taken place for 2 years.
  • The clause in the risk assessment that the route needs to be checked on the day, prior to the trip - is it useful? It’s certainly prohibitive in terms of staff time
  • Re-prioritising kinaesthetic responses to space. Can we facilitate the adults to remember this way of being physical?

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