About Us

A History of Chelsea Open Air Nursery School
and Children’s Centre

In early 1928, before the stock market crash and the Depression, an American woman living in London used part of her inheritance to start Chelsea Open Air Nursery School for her own children. Her name was Natalie Davies and from the year the school was founded up until 1939, she directed the nursery along new principles emerging at the time, which combined a healthy and invigorating lifestyle with the most recent discoveries in child development.

The founders chose the current building at 51 Glebe Place which was an historic artisan’s cottage dating from the 1500’s combined with a large artist’s studio and garden. The cottage was restructured to include a washroom, toilets, a kitchen, a shed for prams and skylights in the ceiling. New lighting, heating and wash basins with hot and cold taps were also installed. The children quickly became used to playing outdoors in all weather conditions whilst indoors the rooms were never heated to more than 13.3 degrees centigrade, the ideal temperature for active children.

Children enjoy playing outdoors

By 1936 the school was flourishing and had attracted the attention of serious academics who had been promoting the same methods on a more theoretical level. One of these was Dr. Susan Isaacs who sent several of her students from the Institute of Child Development (which was to become the Institute of Education), which she directed, to observe how the children played and interacted.

With World War 2 looming, Mrs Davies approached Susan Isaacs with an offer to take over the educational policy of the nursery school. She had been a trustee for several years, had provided guidance and counsel in exchange for the possibility of studying the children’s behaviour to refine her working methods from the University of Cambridge. She was by then a towering figure in English education.

Dr Susan Isaacs

As Natalie Davies returned to the United States in 1939 she handed Chelsea Open Air Nursery School to Susan Isaacs and provided for the school with an ongoing trust fund but soon after, one and a half million children were evacuated from inner London with many of the schools being occupied by civil defence bodies. Chelsea Open Air Nursery School, like other buildings, fell into disrepair and much of the play equipment was given away to the wartime nurseries.

By the end of the war a quarter of the schools had been destroyed and another quarter were damaged and in need of some kind of repair work. In 1943 Chelsea Open Air Nursery School reopened under the auspices of London University’s Department of Child Development, which had been Susan Isaacs’ department from 1933 until the start of the war. The nursery’s finances were just sound enough to continue operating in conjunction with private fees and in 1959 the funds were supplemented with a memorial trust in the name of Natalie Davies, who died that year.

Susan Isaacs, who had been the inspirational figure throughout most of the life of Chelsea Open Air Nursery School and more widely in the entire child-centred education movement in England, died in 1948 at the age of 63. However, her detailed observational writing to this day brings children’s play and learning alive.

Between the mid 1960’s and early 1970’s the nursery suffered a chronic lack of funds. Most of the children came from middle class families who lived in the neighbourhood but the fees were barely sufficient to cover costs and the building began to age and deteriorate, albeit gracefully. In 1977 the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) took over responsibility for the school on behalf of the State and with its financial worries solved a new head teacher and other professional staff were employed. Some feel that the period which followed under the enlightened auspices of ILEA was a golden age.

Children enjoy the opportunity to express themselves creatively through music and dance

However by the time Kathryn Solly took over as head in the 1990’s her more modern and active leadership was very much required with the building and other aspects of the organisation again looking tired and in gentle hibernation.

She took up the reins and began looking for funds and has been doing so ever since. Between 1996 and 1998 she started rejuvenating the garden with the support of the local authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.  In 2006 the Children’s Centre was added as a natural compliment to the Nursery. The most recent project in the summer and autumn of 2010 has been the addition of the tree house classroom, the opening of the disused cellar for storage and the relocation and renovation of the toilets.

Today Chelsea Open Air Nursery School and Children’s Centre survives as a fitting and faithful legacy of Susan Isaacs pioneering work. Educationalists from around the world visit the school and are inspired by its wonderful setting, ethos and professional expertise.

The nursery school and children’s centre has received many awards from external bodies. These have included:

Investors in People
Excellence in Work Related Learning
The Quality Mark
The Inclusion Quality Mark
NACE
LondonExcellence Award for Innovation and Learning