Originally published in 1989, Henry Pluckrose, well-known as an educational consultant, writer, and lecturer, examines the way in which a study of the local environment can enrich young children’s learning and be used as a starting point for all manner of cross-curriculum work. He explores the ways in which men and women of the past have shaped the physical environment in which contemporary children live and how these changes are reflected in and commented upon by public buildings, their own homes, systems of transport, the streets of village, town, and city, and so on.

Written specially for all who have responsibility for young children – teachers, youth leaders, parents – the book offers a wealth of suggestions for helping children look at their everyday environment. It indicates ways in which close observation of place can provide the starting point in a learning programme, showing how information which adult and child obtain together can be recorded through pictures, models, maps, plans, and photographs, and in the written and spoken word. Seen Locally is an invaluable source book of ideas which can be developed and extended within the curriculum guidelines of each individual school.