St. Anne's Nursery School

St. Anne's Nursery School was founded and opened by Miss Esther Lawrence as the "Michaelis Free Kindergarten at Notting Hill" in 1908. It had an open-air shelter built in 1928 which was enclosed and is now known as the garden room. Extracts from annual reports: "We know - Froebel told us so 100 years ago - that the early years of life are the most important if a child is to attain full stature in manhood. The modern nursery school, though different in certain ways from the old kindergarten, has the same aim in view, the provision for the child's spiritual, emotional, physical and social needs in a secure environment where he can learn through play and through the ordered social routine of the planned nursery programme. It doesn’t and can never supplant family life, but it supplements and enriches it" (Notting Hill Nursery School, 42nd Annual Report, 1949-1950). "Michaelis Free Kindergarten was opened in March, 1908, and is close to the poor and densely populated district of Notting Dale, one of the worst slum areas of London. In many cases large families live in a single room, the children have insufficient fresh air, are inadequately fed, and totally untrained in good habits. Their lives are cramped and joyless. It is from such homes that children attend the Free Kindergarten" (The Michaelis Free Kindergarten, Progress Report, c 1910).