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Paediatric nursing Nursing: education Education: practical experience Children’s nursing and the training of children’s nurses have undergone many changes throughout history and they have continued to adapt and develop to meet the needs of children and their families. In the UK, there is a plethora of literature, including reports focusing on children’s welfare, which have emphasised that children require care from personnel who have undergone specialist preparation and have specialist skills. There have been recent calls to contribute to the formulation of a National Service Framework for Children in England. It is clear therefore that not only are children different, but that they need special consideration. Over the years there has been a steady shift in terms of working patterns within clinical environments. There have been changes in the philosophy of care of children and their families. One could argue that parental involvement in care not only means that there could be a transfer of part of economic costs of caring from the state to the family, but that the family could potentially be carrying out more and more care that was formerly the remit of nurses (Taylor 1996). Acquiring skills in clinical practice is a crucial component of pre-registration preparation for children’s nurses. Nicol and Freeth (1998) discuss the importance of skills, commenting that they lie at the heart of professional practice and therefore mastery of such fundamental skills is an important component of courses leading to registration. It is not unusual for children’s nursing students who evaluate their preparation for registration to make reference to their lack of confidence in the use and application of clinical skills. There are very real difficulties in some Trusts, not just in providing placements for students but for ensuring that those placements are not too heavily used. In this article we will explore the need for an equipped, dedicated children’s skills laboratory by briefly explaining the history of skills learning and assessment, and the consequent development of such initiatives. We will review current literature and briefly examine the UKCC’s education commission report, Fitness for Practice, in particular, the emphasis that is placed on clinical skills. The focus of the article however is on the acquisition of skills by children’s nursing students in pre-registration education.