A pioneering approach to development

AS 10 four- and five-year-olds lean forward out of their tiny green plastic chairs, teacher Margaret Brown holds up a small yellow duck and poses a question.

“Do you think it will float at the top of the water?” she asks her junior infant class.

Heads nod and hands fly up to say it will, one eager little hand almost hitting the teacher in the chin. Ms Brown, too, is leaning over the low desk in the middle of the room, with a plastic storage container on top of it half-filled with water.