"PLAN/DO/REVIEW" might be seen as ideal advice for an adult approaching a task - but for three year olds?

Yet this rubric is described as one of the "key elements" of High/Scope, a pre school programme for three to five year olds which has been used in the United States for the past 30 years and in Barnardo's Millbrook Nursery in Tallaght, Dublin, for the last 10.

An American study of "graduates" of High/Scope estimated that every $1 invested in the programme saved the US taxpayer $7 - by reducing expenditure on special education and the criminal justice system, and creating tax revenues that would otherwise have been lost.

Maria O'Reilly, acting team leader at the Millbrook Nursery, where three groups of eight children go through the High/Scope programme each year, makes no such statistical claims. However, she says, "it certainly makes the children more independent and assertive, and gives them confidence. Giving them control gives them the concept of being able to determine their own direction."

High/Scope is, O'Reilly says, "child oriented and very much focused on active learning. It is flexible in being able to meet the children's individual needs, rather than their collective needs."

That sounds fine - but how does it actually work? Children are encouraged to plan at the beginning of each day what each of them would like to do during a designated "work" period. As a typical High/Scope room is laid out in clearly labelled work areas - such as the "Home Corner", the "Block Corner" and the "Quiet Corner", all appropriately furnished - quite a few choices are involved here.

Making a "plan" is difficult for most children, even if it is broken down into small steps; but they can be encouraged from such small beginnings - eg, by getting a child to point to where he or she wants to work in the room, and to the "tools" to be used there.

Sticking to the plan can be even harder, especially for children whose average age is three, and who come from homes where structures are scarce and choices are limited. "If they ended up doing something different from what they had planned, we would remind them, say, that they had planned to play with the blocks and were now in the `Home Corner', and ask them had they changed their minds."

This constant reminder of the connection between planning and doing continually reinforces the idea of making things happen through choice, of being in control. Reviewing the work at the end is aimed at encouraging children to analyse - eventually - how they have carried out their plan, and whether they should have done it differently.

For three year olds, though, "reviewing means remembering" and is done in a group - so that memories are aided by "No, you didn't! You were painting with me!"

THROUGHOUT the "doing or work" time, which lasts for at least one hour, the child remains in control, with the adult observing and supporting the child; the "small group time", when the adult initiates the activity, lasts for only 15 to 20 minutes.

Monitoring each child's needs and progress is done by evaluating what High/Scope calls "key experiences". These are broken down into about nine broad areas, including language and literacy, creative representation, initiative and social relations, and movement. The children's development in these areas determines the activities to be included in the adult initiated activities, as well as the aspects to be particularly supported during the "plan/do/review" time.

These two factors - the "plan/do/review" and the "key experiences" differentiate High/Scope from other early education models. However, according to O'Reilly, "there are structures in place that make it easier for staff trained in different early education models to slot into. It builds on existing training and experience, rather than being a whole new system."

Children spend a year in the High/Scope programme in Tallaght, but if at the end of that year, parents - whose involvement is strongly encouraged - and staff feel the child would benefit from a second year, then the child will repeat the programme.

Most children do go straight - on into "big school", but for the first year after "graduation" from High/Scope they return one afternoon a week "to facilitate the transition".

Many of these are children who need and deserve all the help they can get. Teaching them to assert their right to make choices, to follow them through and to learn from the results could be the best lesson - they ever learn.