The Red Barn Nursery School was first held, most appropriately, in a Red Barn. It was established in 1943 by Eleanor Speare and Helen Blake, with guidance from Miss Elliot and Miss Chandler of the Nursery Training School of Boston, which evolved into the Elliot Pearson Department of Clinical Study at Tufts University. The first "Red Barn" was located at the home of Mrs. Speare on Concord Road in Weston. The Barn, according to Mrs. Speare, was the school's focus, "with the hay and alfalfa piled high, making wonderful jumping off places for children and goats."

In the early 50's, the school moved to larger quarters, and in 1952 it became an educational, non-profit corporation. Red Barn's early program had relied from the start on mother helping and parent cooperation. With such a tradition, it was natural for the school to be run by a parent executive board that, in turn, chooses a Director and works with her on all policies and problems relating to the school.

The school was located at several Weston sites, including the Brooks School, before the present building, designed, scaled and built for small children, became its present home in 1957. Building this facility was also a great cooperative achievement. As Mrs. Blake says, "Without the wonderful cooperation of the parents of Red Barn children, and the immense amount of work they put into fund-raising activities, the present building could never have become a reality."

In 1968, another Red Barn tradition, the Scholarship program, was started. The program extends the Red Barn experience to more children and gives to all Red Barn people a chance to play and work with others of different economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. As Mrs. Speare puts it, "thus helping all the children to grow and accept as a matter of course differences in people the world over." Again the success of this program has greatly depended on the efforts of many, many parents to make it work.

Throughout its history, the Red Barn Nursery School has been a special place to grow during the preschool years. Two, three, four and five-year olds have enjoyed a chance to feel nurtured, accepted and good about themselves and their parents have been an active part of this shared experience.

The Red Barn tradition is one of parents and teachers working together for the benefit of all the children. This working together has been going on since 1943 in one of the oldest cooperative nursery schools in the Boston area. It is one of our goals as parents and teachers to accept the responsibility of this tradition and keep it alive for future Red Barn children.