Our Intergenerational Journey

We began our intergenerational journey over ten years ago and throughout that time, the setting has engaged in many intergenerational sessions from children developing their allotment with the help of Ronnie or exploring their imagination in our forest school with Kath. Our amazing Poetry Pauline is also a weekly visitor to nursery where children are absorbed in her magical stories.

In August 2022, we decided to go for it and really embrace our belief that children and older people can work successfully together and learn from each other. After a lot of research, we found the amazing Winton Court. The setting is a not for profit and has a real sense of community which dovetails perfectly with the nursery philosophy. We held a ‘taster session’ to see if our plan would work. From the moment we entered the building, we were greeted by the most wonderful people and we instantly felt this was going to be an extension of our nursery family.

In September 2022, we began our first official visits to Winton Court with 12 children and 3 adults. The children very quickly established deep connections with the residents and special friendships blossomed. Our third year was quite different and after putting the information out to parents about joining our project, we were inundated with parents wanting to sign their children up. We wanted to allow every child to be part of this magical journey and decided to expand and take two groups of children, attending Winton Court weekly. This proved very successful and our third year would be one of most successful yet. This year saw us work with Newcastle University and have our first intergenerational research study published in the Journal of Intergenerational Relationships. In October 2024, we won the North East Business Award for Innovation and in June 2025, the NDNA Community Support award. We were elated!

Now in our fourth year of the project, we have huge plans to make sure that this year will be the biggest and best yet so watch this space!

If you are interested in our intergenerational work or would like to know more, please contact us at atelierista@childsplaynursery.info.