Olive Howes obituary

My mother, Olive Howes, who has died aged 98, was a pioneer practitioner of early years education. After training as an infant teacher in the late 1940s, she combined motherhood with work, unusual in the 50s. She set up a private nursery school in a friend’s front room near our home in Romiley, Stockport, teaching with my infant brother on her hip. She was passionate about the impact of nursery education on the life chances of children – she reiterated frequently that the best and most skilled teachers should be working with the youngest pupils. The Plowden report (1967) gave her the opportunity to set up a pilot nursery school for Cheshire county council. There was a dual rationale: to allow professional women to return to the workforce by providing free childcare, and to give children from Educational Priority Areas (EPAs) a sound grounding for starting primary school. Our locality, in Woodley, near Stockport, provided a healthy mix, and Mum quickly became a trusted adviser to the families of the children in her care. She selected two nursery nurses who supported the education of the many children who attended the nursery during the 15 years her team worked there to develop exemp