2.2 Baby camps

There is a photograph of a grassy area with a tree and sticks made into a den. The text underneath reads: Headteacher’s Welcome. Welcome to Rachel McMillan Nursery School and Children’s Centre. We are a Local Authority Maintained School. Opened in 1914 we are thought to be the fist ‘Open Air’ Nursery School in England. Our founders, Margaret and Rachel McMillan believed children learn best if they are healthy and active. They encouraged the children to be out in the fresh air for most of the day. The children at Rachel McMillan still do most of their learning outside, no matter the weather! The McMillan sister’s ideas about early childhood education continued to be followed and talk about across the world. Our atmospheric classrooms (know as ‘Shelters’) were built to create a village feeling and are located in a large, lovely, semi-wild garden, known to many of our families and visitors as the secret garden of Deptford! It is a wonderful space to be a child, encouraging curiosity, exploration and wonder.

There is a black-and-white photograph of Dr Susan Isaacs. The text next to and underneath it reads: Our history. The School was set up in 1928 by Dr Susan Isaacs and Natalie Davies. The name ‘Open Air’ dates from that period and was part of a countrywide educational movement. The ‘Open Air’ philosophy is still important today when our children seem to lack safe but challenging space to play in. In the 1920s it was first recognised educationally that outdoors is as valuable a learning environment as indoors. The Open Air philosophy also recognised that many city children did not have enough access to fresh air, sunlight and exercise for healthy development. In the twenty-first century the garden is still central to our philosophy and combines with our indoor areas to provide a complete and balanced learning environment. In 1978 the school became part of the Inner London Education Authority and is now state funded. In 2006 it became on of the first children’s centres in the Borough proving a ‘one stop shop’ for local families, babies and young children. The School became a ‘linked’ site to the Children’s Centre Services in the South Locality and in 2016 we established our own thriving Community Programme. The School is housed in a timber framed building dating from 1587 and a seventeenth workman’s cottage which along with other houses in the street became artists’ studios, in our case for the painter Benjamin Haydon. The school garden dates from the beginning of this.