Date
31/07/2024
Grant holder
Dr. Kay Heslop, Northumbria University and Dr. Charmaine Agius Ferrante, Northumbria University
Project status
In Progress

A research project listening to and collating the views of children about their sense of identity and belonging in an intergenerational setting.

Children and their grand-friends have been working and playing together for the past two years in an established intergenerational village which consists of a care village and fully integrated 0-5 nursery in Chester, England.

The Nursery in Belong is a Froebelian-inspired nursery where young children grow and are nurtured by both early years educators and their grand-friends who live in the intergenerational village. It is part of the national early years charity, Ready Generations.


Many benefits have been presented in literature for children and older people who participate in intergenerational programmes. For instance, one literature review reported that the children involved showed improvements in psychological outcomes, such as reduced stress and improved self‐confidence (Park, 2015) while Kirsh, Frydenberg and Deans (2021) reported socio‐emotional benefits for pre‐school children.

Building upon prior research completed when the nursery first opened two years ago and involving members of the proposed research team (Heslop and Caes, under review), the aim is to determine the children’s perspectives of their learning and experiences. The nursery is currently full, with a waiting list and has received several early years and care sector awards for innovation and ground-breaking practices.

The research model will focus on listening to and collating the views of children about their sense of identity and belonging in this uniquely integrated setting. Researchers will use the Mosaic Approach which views children as experts in their own lives (Clark and Moss, 2001).

To ensure continuous improvement and build professional expertise around intergenerational pedagogy, it is important to determine the children’s perspectives about what matters most to them and brings them joy, alongside research into practice lessons for the highest quality early childhood development and learning.

The research team plan to report on their findings in Autumn 2025.