Elinor Goldschmied

Violet Elinor Goldschmied ( Sinnott; 15 December 1910 – 27 February 2009) was an English educationalist. Educated at the London School of Economics and qualified as a psychiatric social worker, she worked in an Italian state institution for illegitimate and abandoned children before moving to a home for single mothers in Milan, overseeing changes to the education of children and the training of staff, leading to a transformation of childcare in Italy. Goldschmied developed the concept of the "treasure basket" containing safe, multi-sensory household items in a low, open basket, for children able to sit and explore independently without physical adult intervention. The concept of "heuristic play" grew out of the treasure basket as a means of autonomous play for babies under the age of two. Goldschmied also developed the “Key Person approach” (KPA) within non maternal childcare settings for establishing meaningful attachment relationships within nurseries.

Biography Early life Elinor Violet Sinnott was born to a middle-class family in rural Gloucestershire on 15 December 1910. Goldschmied's brother died when she was eight years old and the death of her mother followed shortly afterwards. At age 12, Elinor (and her elder sister) left the family home to live with their grandfather in Bristol, where she was educated at the Clifton High School in Bristol and she subsequently became head girl. There, she made the decision to enter into a career in education and trained to be a nursery teacher at the Froebel College in Roehampton. Goldschmied took part in left-wing causes while she was at the university and was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. the latter group with whom she worked with were between the ages of two and four and all were deemed "unbilletable" because of poor behaviour. It led to the introduction of "heuristic play" to promote a relaxed form of play for babies under the age of two and for maintaining a special relationship with an individual member of staff; The ideas were published in the 1994 book People Under Three: Children in Daycare, which she co-authored with Sonia Jackson. She eschewed grand theories,