BIDDEFORD — The Mother Goose Nursery School, operated by high school students at the Biddeford Regional Center of Technology, is going back to its roots.

The school, which accepts 4-year-old students, was first located at the COT, said Mary Maxfield, who supervises the program, in a telephone interview Monday.

When the Biddeford Primary School was built, it was moved there so the nursery school students would be around other young children, and the juniors and seniors who run the program could be with students of different ages.

The nursery school moved again when grades were rearranged after the Biddeford Middle School was built. For the past few years, the nursery school has been located at the John F. Kennedy Memorial School and Kindergarten Center. But there is less space there now since offices for adult education have moved to JFK.

When the functional life skills course was moved from the COT to Biddeford High School, that made room for the nursery school to return to the COT.

Maxfield said she doesn’t see a problem with the young children being at the COT, since they didn’t interact much with the older elementary school children when the school was located at BPS or JFK.

While the nursery school is beneficial for the children who attend, its real purpose is to train high school students, said Maxfield. Those who attend include students who are interested in early childhood instruction, she said.

“I have high school students who want to learn more about children,” said Maxfield. “Some are interested in having their own childcare center, or working at a childcare center or being a teacher. Some just take it because they plan to be a parent.”

Many of her former students have followed all these paths, she said.

“I still keep in touch with some of my students,” said Maxfield. “Some are teachers, some have opened their own child care facility and some have children in the nursery school.”

In their classes at the COT, high school students learn theory and study the developmental stages children go through, she said.

In addition, the juniors and seniors are responsible for planning all portions of the nursery school, which focuses on teaching the youngsters, she said.

“It’s not just baby-sitting, it’s more than that,” said Maxfield.

Taylar Lamontagne, who will be a senior at Thornton Academy in Saco this fall, said in a telephone interview Monday that she took the class last year because she is interested in becoming a child psychologist.

“In using the textbook, it taught us about the development from birth to 4-year-olds, and how children can develop different skills,” she said.

Lamontagne said when she went on a internship in a kindergarten classroom, “I saw a huge step in development between 4- and 5-year-olds.”

“I definitely learned a lot in the class,” she said.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.