Introduction
author’s concerns about the external environment around the school, and the messages it sends to children about their place in a fragile world. Most of the contributors are also parents with a wealth of practical experience regarding the wellbeing of their own children. Catherine Burke is no exception and she explores a concern for many parents at present; that is the quality of food our children consume both at home, in the urban environment and at school. Chapter 9 explains the pivotal role food should play within the educational curriculum and the physical shape of the school itself. Certainly when visiting most Italian childcare centres where lunchtime is usually a pure gastronomic pleasure, organized almost as a ritualistic event, one is starkly reminded of how our own fast food culture has diminished our children physically and socially. She has visited a number of inspiring international examples of what is currently happening in the edible landscape of schools. She reports on her findings. It will be apparent from this brief description that the views expressed are largely consistent with the principle that in the modern world, children should be seen AND heard. As editor I would like to complete this introduction with a summary of two concerns which have emerged over the past decade from my own personal experiences both as a designer of children’s environments and as a parent. Both concerns relate to the nature of education and care. One is my view that education (within the UK) is failing many of our children because it does not match the needs of individual children closely enough; secondly, that children benefit from an environment which challenges them to adopt independent behaviour from the earliest years. Both of these views are illustrated by examples of what I consider to be excellent innovative design for children which also has considerable benefits for the wider community.
1. Education in the UK: small is beautiful In the UK, daycare remains the preserve of two social types, each at opposite ends of the wealth
divide. Firstly, for the children of relatively well-todo working parents who can afford to pay for private and very expensive daycare; secondly, it is reserved for children of the non-working poor, who benefit from free daycare through services like Sure Start, who provide targeted, fully subsidized family provision directed towards the poorest communities in Britain. Daycare is not available for the majority of lower to middle class children simply because it is unaffordable.3 Parents of these children continue to go out to work. What happens to their children before they are admitted to mainstream school aged 4? The reality is they are ferried around between friends, neighbours and relatives, they attend shoddy part-time facilities in church halls, or part-time sessions in mainstream school nurseries. Through this experience they may feel marginalized and uncared for, as they learn to survive in a regime where they understand that parents simply cannot cope with their need for love and nurturing, which only time and space can provide. In a society where a market place for labour consumes people’s time voraciously and dictates that parents work long hours, young children pay their own price. The allocation of wealth in these Anglo-American societies is largely based on non communal antisocial values. However, from the age of five (or in some cases aged four), children spend much of their time in school. Primary school is a good experience for many children. Up to the age of 8 or 9, most of these young people will behave well and work harmoniously within a nurturing setting. Further up the education line, just when children have found their feet, they have to move on, to a secondary school. For the most part, they and their parents will get another stark reminder of the market place which prevails in education. If their parents can afford it, some lucky children will be taken out of the state sector at the age of eight or eleven and sent to private schools. There, class sizes will be small, with specialist support for those who need it and perhaps most importantly, a good quality environment. Alternatively, parents may be lucky enough to find themselves living in a middle class area with a good local school, which maintains its xi