Children have a natural desire to learn through exploring the possibilities around them. For example, a young baby will lie on their back with their arms in the air and gaze at their hands whilst moving their fingers. The baby is exploring and experimenting with their body’s potential. Babies are born with skills and motivation to play without encouragement or reward from adults, this continues as the years go by (Tassoni, 2019). A toddler may be given an empty box to play with, and without any direction from an adult, jump inside and pretend to drive their ‘car’ because they have experienced their important adults drive them places. Playfulness is common amongst all young mammals, including humans, and offers rich learning opportunities across all areas of development and a chance to hone skills (Tassoni, 2019). This can also be seen when a young child is in the bath, they may explore the properties of the water they are submerged in and test out what it is like to hit water. Play is part of the survival process of a child as they must learn, over the years, to navigate the world around them. Thus, play is the vehicle through which children will gather information about the world around them, test this knowledge and explore deeper to work out their place (Chilvers, 2011). This wonder at the world around this is instilled in them from birth and they have a compulsion to comprehend the world they find themselves in.
A child’s intrinsic motivation to play and initiate involvement in the world around them is empowering and supports their sense of self as a competent learner. Through play, children can adopt a ‘growth mindset’ that can give them the confidence to tackle future learning challenges (Dweck, 2006). Research that analyses both cross-cultural and historical data, evidences that children will play, and it is necessary to their development. This proves true across all cross sections of society; irrespective of gender, geographical location, culture or socio-economic circumstances. A child who is free to use the resources around them, irrespective of social and economic differences, will use them to play and learn (Children’s Play Information Service (CPIS), 2004).
Children who experience severe abuse and constrained freedoms, having to enter the labour force or the military are in extreme circumstances that will limit their ability to play (CPIS, 2004). Due to the innate drive to play, this is likely to cause the children to experience severe emotional distress. This type of trauma can impact their brain’s development due to an over-stimulated amygdala which impedes the functioning of the logical parts of the brain (Siegel, 2012). Therefore, restricting a child’s ability to fulfil their need to play will mean they are unable to develop in a healthy way.
Play supports a child through all domains of development. When children have the opportunity to play with other children and adults, they are developing the skills to navigate social relationships. For example, taking turns, empathising with others and helping others, collaboration. These social play opportunities also allow for emotional development by requiring them to regulate their own emotions in their relationships with others, as well as discover who they are themselves. Play facilitates the release of emotions: excitement can be channelled in to the physical release of emotions through movement; frustration can be release through building and destroying their constructions, as well as scribbling on a piece of paper; and joy can be experienced when dancing to music. These activities previously described support a child’s physical development and health in addition. Fine and gross motor skills are developed through the movement intrinsic to play. Running around, climbing up a jungle gym and swinging on monkey bars develop a child’s gross motor skills. Constructing a tower from blocks and drawing will fine tune their fine motor skills. Both cognitive and language development are enhanced through these activities when they explore something new, for example learning about the shapes of the blocks they are using to build their tower, which blocks work best on top of each other and the names for their colours (Tassoni, 2019). For the child, play is joyful, exciting, challenging and never-ending in its possibilities. For the adults supporting the child, supporting a child through play will enhance their ability to explore those possibilities, tackle new challenges and develop a love for learning.
My setting revolves around a play-based curriculum that centres the child in learning and ensures that they are encouraged to become active learners. Thus, in the setting their ‘right to relax, play and join in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities’ is fulfilled (Article 31, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). For example, we must have a reading/quiet corner in our classrooms which are set up to facilitate children in relaxation, reflection time, as well as reading to develop their literacy skills and interest in books. The areas are designed to be comfortable and are accessible to the children so they can make the independent choice for quiet time. Our policies also ensures that both in our classrooms and our STEM room our play resources are clearly set out, labelled and at accessible heights to the children so that the children can lead they play and make their own choices about their play. We call these areas ‘learning centres’ that offer the children a wide range of playful choices that are set up to promote their learning. This also aligns with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework (2017) which mandates they children are offered an environment that supports a child’s autonomous choices in play with the guidance of adults. The later part of this mandate is also reflected in our policies. During all play opportunities, educational facilitators must be actively present, observing play and supporting children wherever appropriate. Our setting also has extensive outdoor areas (a splash pad, toddler play garden, zen garden, jungle gym and car wash) that our policies dictate we must use daily, when the weather allows. This policy is also supported by the EYFS Statutory Framework (2017) that ensures education providers offer daily outdoor time. On occasions when weather does not allow, we must use our soft play gym or role-play room daily to ensure physical exercise is on offer, as well as other diverse play opportunities e.g. imaginative, creative, and heuristic play in the role-play room. In accordance with our policies and EYFS Statutory Framework (2017), practitioners must regularly carry out health and safety checks on our resources to ensure that we are keeping the children safe during their play. However, our COVID-19 policies have introduced some restrictions on our ability to play in the free-flowing manner that was typical in the setting prior. Due to COVID-19, classes are unable to share resources unless sanitisation has occurred first. Thus, free-flowing play and use of resources but adhere to a schedule that allows for sanitisation to keep the children and staff save from COVID-19.
The setting also places great emphasis on the parent-child and parent-teacher relationship. As practioners in the setting, we have a responsibility to find out the child’s play preferences at home and support these at school with the aim to extend and stretch the child’s learning from these activities. We must also feedback what we have observed at school to the parents such that their play opportunities at home can be developed. This importance of parent-teacher communication is also explained in the EYFS Statutory Framework (2017) and reflects the UNCRC (1989) by working to expand the child’s opportunities to play. Our policies also emphasise equal opportunities in play that do not discriminate based on any factor in a child’s or family’s identity – this is mandated in the UNCRC (1989). To support children developing a sense of their own identity and belonging, our toys in the setting reflect the population e.g. ethnically diverse dolls and story books; this is also highlighted as important in Birth to 5 Matters. We also must ensure that as practitioners we do not encourage gender stereotyped play, and if, for example, a young girl prefers to play with dolls we can extend her play gradually over time to introduce her to new play ideas whilst not being judgmental of her initial play choices.
Overall, despite the limitations created by the COVID-19 pandemic, our setting’s policies are based upon the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) by delivering a play-based curriculum, emphasising the importance of child-led play, well-resources play environments, our anti-discrimination policies that emphasise inclusiveness and parent-teacher relationships.
Luca* was playing in the kitchen corner of our STEM room. He brought me a toy pan filled with construction blocks and told me it was pasta for me to eat. I responded to the role play he had initiated and pretended to eat the ‘pasta’. I told him it was delicious and asked if he was cooking anything else. He smiled, nodded and went back to the stove. He found a toy chicken leg and put it in a pan. I asked him what he was doing and he replied ‘cooking the chicken for you’. He brought over a rain stick and I asked what this was for. He showed me by shaking it over the chicken. This was an opportunity for me to extend his play and engage his linguistic skills. I asked him whether is was salt and pepper, he responded by shaking his head. I modelled thinking and tapped my head, I then asked whether he was ended spices spices. He nodded and enthusiastically and said, ‘yes, spices’. He then proudly presented me with my dish and watched me pretend to eat it with delight. This was an episode of child-led play in which Luca used open-ended resources in the learning environment to determine his own ‘play theme’ (Chilvers, 2011). It was my role to respect his autonomy and align with his ideas of where the play was going. Luca was able to utilise his imagination and bring me into his pretend world, I was able to enhance this by adding layers of language to his imaginary play. This interaction involved ‘sustain shared-thinking’ towards the end as we were working together to solve the problem of what it was being added to the chicken. I did this through extending Luca’s narrative around the play. Thus, I was able to extend his imaginary thinking as well as linguistic skills, giving him the confidence by knowing that I valued his input in the play he was leading. We achieved this by combining his ideas with my relevant questions and dialogue with him (Chilvers, 2011).
During our activity time, we have one small group doing an activity with a teacher whilst the other children are engaging in learning centres with the learning assistant, before swapping over. Luca was playing with construction blocks by himself and a spot opened up to do the craft activity with me. I asked him whether he wanted to come and make a sun as we were learning about summer. He shook his head. I waited a while and then went over and showed him what another child had created with the intention of sparking some motivation and interest in the activity, whilst still giving him a choice in participating. He agreed to join us. With my support, Luca traced around a circular object, used scissors to cut it out and cut into the circle to create rays of sunshine. I praised his control of the pencil and scissors, as well as his determination to keep using the scissors even when it was difficult. He seemed pleased with the finished product but was also eager to go back to the construction blocks. This was an activity in which I attempted to extend Luca’s current skills by offering him an opportunity to try something new with my support and direction.
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