Whatever happened to creativity and imagination in early years education? Since the mid-Nineties, the obsession of successive governments with curriculum, testing and assessment has cast a long shadow over nursery and reception classes. But in Pistoia, a small city in the Apennine foothills of Tuscany, they do things differently.

Pistoia has 16 council-run nursery schools providing for almost 1,200 three to six-year-olds. The other 40 per cent of nursery-aged children attend other state and private, often Catholic, schools.

Former TES editor Caroline St John-Brooks is just one of many critics of too early an introduction to formal education. In a recent report from the educational think-tank Politeia, Comparing Pre-school Standards, she says British children start school too early and the pre-school curriculum places too much emphasis on formal skills, which are often inappropriate, especially for boys.

In contrast the Pistoian pre-school ethos has play at its heart: dramatic play, art, song and story. There is no formal teaching of written language until the age of six. In England, the teaching of sound-letter relationships starts in the nursery, sometimes as early as three. And while our early years curriculum says almost nothing about relationships between children and teachers, Pistoia emphasises close, caring relationships with children and their families.

But now Silvio Berlusconi’s government is introducing an education act that will bring forward by six months the ages at which children leave the asilo nido (infant-toddler centre) and nursery school. Children will enter nursery school at two-and-a-half, and elementary school at five-and-a-half. Italian early years experts worry that this could turn the asilo nido into little more than a childcare facility and push children into formal education prematurely. In Pistoia such a move could destroy what must surely be one of the most progressive early years programmes in northern Europe.

At Il Sole, a fee-paying asilo nido, the teacher who opens the front door is wearing a long apron and holding an old-fashioned broom. “Go in, go in, the witch is coming,” she says. The 20 children, aged 18 months to three years, are having a morning snack and a song, with their team of three teachers.

The song suddenly changes to a low, creepy tune about “the witch” and, with a great flourish, she enters, in a mass of black crumpled net and pointed hat. Some of the children cower pleasurably as the witch unveils a giant felt spider and lets anyone who’s brave enough touch it. But oh dear, the spider has bitten a teacher. Now everybody has to sing a healing spell, which makes the finger better instantly. The witch says goodbye and rushes off; she’ll be back tomorrow.

Il Sole is in the basement of a new high-rise building on a working-class estate. It has three rooms - a gymnasium, a dormitory for naps at one end combined with an area for books and puppets, and a laboratorio or workshop.

One group is going to the gymnasium, which is large and full of light. Two children roll around in a big plastic tank full of coloured balls. There’s a wooden bus to climb in, a wooden bridge to cross, and a wooden elephant with a slide for a trunk - all commissioned from local craftsmen. Most popular is a corner with cardboard crates for crawling in and out of.

Every asilo nido and nursery in Pistoia has a highly developed and resourced specialist activity. At Il Sole it is nature study and gardening, and today the children find that the sand tray in the laboratorio is full of potting compost. For half-an-hour or so they are absorbed, first simply manipulating the compost and then using trowels to shovel it around. Margharita is methodically marking out a road system; Giacomo is making a “big mountain”.

They talk about skiing trips to the nearby mountains and wonder if you could ski on compost. They remember how they planted daffodils, and go over to see where they’re growing, by the window.

All around them the laboratorio is full of things growing and displays of things that once grew - a row of pumpkins, baskets of corn cobs, hydrangea heads, dry leaves, cones, conkers, nuts and seeds, all gathered at the end of last summer by the children and their parents.

The display is beautifully arranged in the Pistoia style. The early years team in the city’s education office call this a “legible” environment.

Next it is time to plant gladioli bulbs. The children are anxious about what will happen to the bulbs under the earth. They fill pots, cover their bulbs and put them to sleep. “We’ll come back tomorrow and give them some more to drink,” promises Beatrice, the teacher. These two-year-olds have been in the laboratorio for well over an hour, totally focused on their activity.

At a nearby council-run nursery school for three to six-year-olds, called La Filastrocca (“the nursery rhyme”), the first thing you see is a “parents’ corner”, full of information about the school. There are newsletters, books of stories written by grandparents, books of nursery rhymes collected by children and families, books written by parents - the parents of every year group collaborate in making a book of memories for their children’s final term. As in all Pistoia pre-schools, documentation of learning is on display everywhere. Outside each classroom a daily diary keeps parents up to date.

The laboratorio at La Filastrocca is a spacious library which hosts children from all the year groups in the morning, parents, grandparents and children in the afternoons, and teachers for workshops. Then there’s the “magic room”, full of carnival costumes and dressing-up clothes.

But the favourite room for many children is the “room of lights”. This is simply a room with blinds on the windows, cushions on the floor, coloured theatre lights, an overhead projector and a slide projector. Rosetta, a teacher, tells a group of five-year-olds that they’re going to change the room into a desert. But how? Change the colour, they say; put the yellow light on. They look at a picture projected on to the wall to see what is in this desert - a lion and a lioness asleep. “Why is there no blue in the sky?” asks Rosetta. “It’s sunset and it’s getting dark.” “Do lions and lionesses go to sleep when it’s dark?” “No,” says Isaaco. “Sometimes they keep quiet and watch. Then they go quatto quatto (quietly) and jump on their prey.” The children act out the lions stalking, with the cushions as prey.

Then, using a torch to point with, they look for where the sun has set, and trace its path from sunrise, through midday, to where it went down. “Where has it gone?” asks Rosetta. “It’s hiding in another part of the world,” says Bianca, and demonstrates the sun going round with whirling arms. Niccolo says: “It’s not the sun going round. It’s us that are going round.”

The parents at La Filastrocca are enthusiastic about their children’s learning. Elena’s mother considered a private nursery school - “it was all so dull and bare” - before sending her daughter here. “Some schools are just car parks for children,” says Isaaco’s father. “If all schools in Italy were like this, all the children would be geniuses. The older the children get, the stupider the schools are.”

And what are their children learning? “To be creative, to enjoy books and stories, to be imaginative,” says one parent. “To learn how to learn. These children know how to concentrate,” says another. They speak warmly about the teachers. “They notice what’s important to her”; “My child might have had problems if he hadn’t come here. He was quiet and withdrawn, but he’s become confident, open.”

The one person you will not meet at La Filastrocca is the headteacher - because there isn’t one. All the teachers are paid on the same scale at all the schools, sharing responsibilities. “It stimulates co-operation within the school,” says a spokeswoman for Pistoia’s education department. “It means teachers’ work can be recognised and appreciated more widely.”

Pistoia has a tradition of pre-school education going back 30 years. Now the council is trying to extend its child-centred ethos to other areas of city life. Annalia Galardini, director of early education, is charged with ensuring that all departments improve their provision for children.

And that means all children, whatever their social or ethnic background. About 7 per cent of children in the pre-school system come from immigrant families - mainly from north Africa, eastern Europe and the Philippines. Pistoia is trying to reach out to these families, and to involve more parents through a network of drop-in centres and a newly built centre for children in the middle of the city.

In the morning, the new centre will host an asilo nido; in the afternoon it hopes to attract mothers and children from Pistoia’s new communities. There’ll also be a computer centre, a children’s library with books in many languages, and a kitchen where people can gather for a snack or a chat.

One educational experience on which the staff at La Filastrocca place great emphasis - and which will stay with the children for the rest of their lives - is eating.

Joining the five-year-olds for lunch, I’d expected a quick plate of pasta. Instead, there are four courses: pasta, meat, vegetables, fruit and cake. Monitors lay the table for each course and serve the food. And while we are waiting for our pasta, and during long gaps between courses, one of the teachers, Alga, tells three folk tales. She is an expert storyteller; nobody fidgets and everyone joins in the punchlines and laughter.

When Alga has finished, Rosetta takes over, leading a raucous sing-song, some of the songs improvised to incorporate the children’s names. This joyous experience goes on for an hour-and-a-half; it is like going to a lively restaurant with a good house band. At the end comes a party - it is Sara’s birthday and a table has been laid for her to sit with two chosen friends, cut her cake, and open a small present.

Baseline assessment seems a long way away. The whole experience has been a demonstration of the core curriculum of pre-school education in Pistoia: affectionate community, creative play, a delight in language and imagination. This - songs, stories, food and friendship - is surely the real business of living and learning together.

Myra Barrs is co-director of the Centre for Language in Primary Education, London, and a visiting professor at the University of East London. She is the co-author of several CLPE publications, including ‘The Primary Language Record Handbook’, ‘Boys and Reading’, ‘Whole-to-Part-Phonics’, and ‘The Reader in the Writer’. ‘Comparing Pre-School Standards’ is available from Politeia, 22 Charing Cross Road, London WC2 0QP (pound;10)