Ney Ferenc Óvoda, Eger, Hungary
Eger lies in the North-East Region of Hungary in the most beautiful mountainous region of the country. Its population is less than sixty thousand, but as it is a town of schools with a Teachers Training College, so there are more people in the town from September till June. It is a popular holiday destination, the historic buildings, the country’s great past, its vivid cultural life, the curative water of the springs, and spas attract thousands of tourists, the young and the old, as well.
The ’Ney Ferenc Nursery School’ is situated in the southern part of the town in a quiet greenbelt area. It is part of a big Child Care Centre where there is a Créshe, a Speech Therapy Centre, a Home for the Elderly and the Disabled. Moreover, it is the Headquarters of five Affiliated Kindergartens.The Nursery School can be found far from noisy crowded streets and roads in a beautiful greenbelt area. It was built in the 1970s. It is a building with all modern conveniences. The rooms for the learning teams are spacious, they are 40 m² large each, and there are lavatories, changing rooms and toilets on 20 m². There are three classrooms for the learning teams. There is a gym in the building, a staff room and a changing room for all employees.In the enclosed yard of the Nursery School, you can find both grassy fields, and sandy places with concrete roads. Trees, bushes give shadows on hot sunny days. We always take a lot of care of our garden and yard. We have changed the old toys in the playground for new wooden toys which protect and save children from injuries.
In 2003, we rebuilt the road at both entrances which are exempt from obstacles, so physically handicapped children can easily get into the building and move in the building.
Children come to our Nursery School at the age of three and move to primary school at the age of six or seven depending how mature they are to start their primary education.The children come from quite well - off families, so their social and economic background is on a relatively higher level than that of their peers from the nearby villages. Through the curriculum, we tend to provide a wide range of activities to develop the children’ s skills to grow up as happy people with a positive aspect on life. Our curriculum is both innovative and exciting, increasingly designed to meet the individual needs of the children. In our Nursery every child matters, so we encourage and support children to develop outstanding personal skills.
The staff have been working with the same management for several years. When we chose the pedagogical programmes to the school profile, and decided what main objectives we should focus on in our work, we took the great working experience of the staff into consideration. Our staff are well aware of the fact that Every Child Matters even if they are different, some are mentally and physically handicapped, or are of special needs children. So, we tried to find a pedagogical programme which is flexible, is full of life, expresses the teachers’ creativity, and develops children’s skills. This way, we found the Activity Centered Pedagogical and Educational Programme which we have adapted according to the specialities of the institution. This programme can be successfully used to integrate children with special needs into the main stream of our Nursery. Our staff ’s main aim is to provide love, comfort and safety for children when they first come to our institution, and to deepen these feelings during the three years of their stay here.
In 2000 we also joined in the Comenius I Quality Control Project. Our main aim was to establish a nursery school where children love to come, parents are satisfied because they know that their children are in a safe place and in good hands, and the staff are also happy to work here. In September 2002, we implemented the establishment of the Partner Centered Quality Control Project.
To build up a co-operative relationship with the parents has been a crucial issue for us for many years, and it has positively improved a lot during the past few years. The Parents’ Governing Body always joins in the programmes very actively, they follow and control the teachers’ work and new ideas. Establishing ’The Foundation For the Ifjúság úti Óvoda’ has been a great result of the long-lasting co-operation of teachers’ and parents’.
We would like to give both the parents, and the children help to overcome their children’s negative experiences in connection
with sleeping in the afternoons. So, we are keen on creating a life in the nursery school where the child’s self-consciousness, rule consciousness, responsibility are being developed through activities everybody takes part in. Furthermore, there are lots of opportunities for a wide range of individual skill development activities where the nursery teacher’s behaviour, attitude and aptitude towards work and children give models both to the children and their parents, as well.