Tag: Reggio Emilia

Alphablocks Research Lab: 2025 Report

Post author By Alphablocks Nursery School
Post date December 19, 2025

Executive Summary

In 2025, Alphablocks Research Lab continued its mission to advance the science of child development and mental health.

This year, the lab focused on how early environments influence learning and mental health throughout development, from childhood to adolescence. Using large-scale data from population cohorts, longitudinal surveys, and neuroimaging scans, our work examined how social safety, parenting, inequality, cognition, and digital environments influence children’s development.

Below we summarise this year’s research by theme.

2025 in Review

Celebrating 10 Years!
New site in Hadley Wood – now in its 2nd year.
Twice Rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted (2018, 2024).
BBC-Pearson Early Years Team of the Year (2025).
New Projects by Alphablocks Research Lab.

Tags Alphablocks Research Lab, child development, Cockfosters Nursery School, early learning, early years, Enfield Nursery, Hadley Wood Montessori Nursery School, nursery school, Ofsted Outstanding, Outstanding, pre-school education, Reggio Emilia

Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Hadley Wood Nursery Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reggio Emilia

Supporting your child’s learning at home: Ideas for developing early science skills

Post author By Alphablocks Nursery School
Post date January 3, 2023

Young children begin to develop a sense of curiosity and start asking questions about the world around them at an early age. In fact, infants and toddlers are naturally curious and are constantly exploring their environment through their senses. As children grow and develop, they become more and more curious about the world around them and will often ask questions about how things work or why things happen. The first steps in scientific enquiry can be taken by fostering this natural curiosity and “systematic” investigation, that is, repeated and consistent exploration of a child’s environment.

There are many ways you can support and encourage your child’s journey in exploration. In general, it is important to provide your child with age-appropriate materials and activities, answer their questions no matter how basic or strange they may seem at first, and encourage them to make observations and ask more questions.

Open-ended resources are essential for nurturing children’s pre-science skills.

Tags child development, Cockfosters Nursery School, early years, early years STEM, Hadley Wood Montessori Nursery School, pre-school education, Reggio Emilia

Early Years Education

Project-based learning in early years education: why is it so important?

Post author By Alphablocks Nursery School
Post date December 21, 2022

Project-based learning is an educational approach in which children learn by actively engaging in hands-on projects. Children work on a project over an extended period of time, typically several days or weeks. The goal of the project is for children to learn new concepts and skills by applying them to the project, rather than simply learning about them through adult-led teaching sessions. Exploring the environment and encouraging investigation of their surroundings is a core element of the approach.

This past Autumn Term, we have been exploring themes of Light and Shadows in all aspects of learning. For instance, using shadow puppetry we brought stories to life as a group. The project was led by the children, their ideas, creations, and explanations of what they were doing were captured and used in a communal exhibition.

Storytelling using shadow puppetry, which was put together as a group project by the children (Autumn Term, 2022)

Tags Cockfosters Nursery School, early learning, early years, Hadley Wood Montessori Nursery School, pre-school education, Reggio Emilia

Cockfosters Nursery Early Years Education Early Years Foundation Stage Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Hadley Wood Nursery High Scope early years approach Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Research on Early Years Development

Colour & Light: The Lightbox Project

Post author By Alphablocks Nursery School
Post date February 26, 2022

During the previous term, we noticed that our children were showing a strong interest in light and shadows, as well as colours and space. As usual, we followed the children’s interests and ideas, and we decided to have a whole half term dedicated to the theme “Colour and Light”.

Tags child development, Cockfosters Nursery School, early learning, early years, Hadley Wood Montessori Nursery School, Reggio Emilia

Books for children Cockfosters Nursery Early Mathematics Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Forest Schools Hadley Wood Nursery Montessori Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reading for early years Reggio Emilia

Our blended-learning approach for early years education

Post author By Alphablocks Nursery School
Post date June 8, 2020

We were so happy to return to our home as a nursery school last Monday, 1st of June. During the weeks of lockdown due to Covid-19 we found many innovative ways of staying connected with our children and their families, and continuing their learning journeys remotely. Unfortunately it has not been possible for all of our children to come back to the classroom in our Hadley Wood site in this half-term. We saw this as a challenge to overcome, so we have opted for a “blended learning” model, which allows us to expand on and complement our nursery-based offering with a remote learning curriculum.

Tags blended learning, Cockfosters Nursery School, early learning, early years, Enfield Nursery, home learning, home schooling, Montessori School, Potters Bar Nursery School, Reggio Emilia, remote learning