Pre-Birth to Three: - Play
Narrator:There is a strong correlation between children’s learning through play in the earliest years and the impact in later life, therefore the importance of play cannot be overstated. Play is a fundamental right for all children, and one which is firmly embedded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is therefore essential that staff provide rich opportunities for children to experience high quality play, both indoors and out.
Dr Rosemary Roberts:We all know now how incredibly important play is, but of course, there are a lot of different kinds of play. For the development of wellbeing, and for young children, I would suggest that the kinds of play that we need to be thinking about and providing for are to do with what Tina Bruce used to call free flow play, about children who initiate their own play, who choose what it is they want to do, who can concentrate, who can persist with it, who can use their own things and make up their own priorities – I like calling it wellbeing play.
Narrator:Babies are predisposed to discover about their world. We know that children need the freedom to play, to practice skills, explore the world around them, and develop knowledge and understanding in their own way and in their own time.
Prof. Maria Robinson:I think the bridge between all aspects of development is play, because right from the very beginning, if you think about the mums and dads and carers talking to babies, it is playful, that “Oh hello, how are you, aren’t you beautiful?” kind of thing, it is playful. Play helps us make the bridge between development, but also it is a bridge for relationships.
Narrator:Play helps children make sense of their experiences, and it encourages them to consolidate and celebrate what they know and can do. Play helps develop children’s self-confidence, social skills, and an awareness of their relationship with others. Play stimulates the imagination and helps children to develop a sense of self, and how they relate to the world in which they live.
Narrator:Staff can discuss, explore and agree preferred approaches to providing and facilitating high quality, developmentally appropriate play experiences. Planning starts with skilful observations of children to ensure there is a sound understanding and acknowledgement of what they already know, of their physical development, and of course what interests the individual child.
Liz Hucheson:At Tarbolton Nursery we ensure that children have the skill to make a choice, it’s a very difficult thing, many children may never have been given a choice in their life, until they come here. And some children find this difficult, but staff encourage them and work with them, and support them, and gradually on a day-to-day basis they eventually have the skill to make a choice.
Amanda Watters:Both indoors and out we are very keen that the children are making choices. To go outdoors we have some examples of pictures with the staff perhaps using digging materials, or we have pictures of resources outside which we might show to the children. Indoors we use our song box to help the children choose a song that they would ... they perhaps have a favourite. We also have a choice of books where the children can choose from sound books, feely books, and whatever they approach the adult with, which we are happy with. Snack time also comes as a choice; they have fruit or crackers, milk and water, so the children are making the choice. Within the baby room general gesturing with pointing, or their body language, or their eyes would show us or indicate the choice that they are making - sometimes through verbal communication depending on their stage. Also children are very good at showing staff what they would like to do and what they wouldn’t like to do, and staff are very much aware of the children’s needs.
Sally Ann Murray:We are aware of the importance of children from a very early age being given choices. And it is basically to all the children, and it’s good for their self-esteem, and it’s their choice, it gives them ownership of the activity, and of course they are far more interested therefore they learn more.
Narrator:Children also need the sensitive and knowledgeable interaction of staff to ensure they feel safe, secure and independent in their play, and also to extend and support their play.
Prof. Colwyn Trevarthen:Well the child has a very, very strong instinct to find other people because they are the only thing in the world that can confirm their belonging, their need to be part of a community. They have to be a community with people, so they can form a private world. We all have an attachment to the house we live in, or the room we sleep in, or the objects that we possess, and babies can be like that too, but really they can’t have companionship with an object.
Narrator:Effective staff are naturally tuned into children, and this enables them to interpret the many valuable messages being conveyed through play. Knowing when to interact, when to introduce a new object, and when to step back and observe is important if staff are to support and extend children’s play opportunities.
Narrator:Very often children demonstrate patterns of schematic behaviour through their play.
Dr Rosemary Roberts:Schemas are basically simply repeating patterns of behaviour. And when you think about children there are lots of repeating patterns of behaviour; that tendency that children have to get inside things, to hide things, to drop your keys down into some inaccessible place because it’s posting them into a whole.
These things are very important, partly for us as practitioners, partly for parents, and fundamentally for children themselves.
Narrator:Babies are predisposed to explore and discover their world, and will investigate everything in the environment. Heuristic play opportunities offer babies and young children a range of resources to enable them to explore through their senses.
Narrator:The treasure basket enables babies to explore everyday items under the supervision of a trusted adult. Babies from birth need to put objects in their mouth to explore how something tastes, the sound it makes, what it feels like, and it’s size and weight. The treasure basket provides opportunities for the baby who is not yet mobile to make choices, discover through their senses, and freely explore the objects at their own pace. The staff role is to ensure the child feels supported, and to arrange the items to ensure the baby can reach and make choices.
Dr Maria Robinson:After about three months babies do start to look around the world, and they do show a curiosity about it; they are looking, they want to look, they want to see things, they want to feel things, they want to have experience of different textures, of different textures, of different sounds. One of the most wonderful things you can give a child once they are sitting reasonably steadily is a treasure basket, where they can just sit and they have got this range of lovely, lovely things, which can be like saucepan lids and wooden spoons, and whisks and all those kind of things. And they can just choose, which allows them to have independent choice, you can see what it is that they are attracted to, to see what they like, what textures they like, what they do, and all the time they are exploring
Berni Hassan:The treasure basket is for children that are non-mobile, and there are items in it that people might look at and think that is not safe for them to be playing with. But it is, they are supervised, a member of staff sits with them, and there are things in it like spaghetti spoons and leather material, there is sheepskin, and there is also a piece of fruit – you would always put a piece of fruit in it – a lemon, an orange, so that there is something for them to smell and taste and that kind of thing. The treasure basket offers a lot of benefits to children, it allows them time without adult intervention, little intervention is given, and it gives the children time to explore and experiment with the materials on their own.
Narrator:When the baby starts to crawl or walk they will move from exploring objects to experimenting with them.
Narrator:Heuristic play offers excellent opportunities for babies who are mobile. Heuristic play encourages babies to use their senses as they explore the properties of a range of different materials, and develop early concepts and skills. For example they are developing maths concepts such as the weight and size of items, how they can be stacked, sorted, matched, and how they fit into one another. Heuristic play also offers the mobile baby opportunities to make choices, play alongside other children, and communicate through body language and imitation.
Ruth Eglington:Heuristic play provides an opportunity for our children who are mobile to come in and be provided with a wide range of natural resources, including things like wooden spoons, ropes, chains, pipes, resources which gives an opportunity for us even at the early stage, to develop early maths skills in the children, because there are opportunities for them to fill an empty container, to fit ropes through tubes, to pair up items, to sort items, so even at that early stage they are getting that opportunity.
Heuristic play also provides us with an opportunity to observe the children in what they are doing in heuristic play. Through interacting appropriately with the children we are also able to observe what they are doing, what skills they are using, what particular small motor skills are they using, what are they having difficulty with, what kind of things are they interested in, all about their hand/eye co-ordination, there are lots of things we can observe. Also we can observe how confident they are in doing that, how much they need the adult. We can observe how they are with the other children; are they sharing well, are they able to take turns, or is everything getting pulled and grabbed in their direction. So we would use this as an opportunity to make a wide range of observations, which obviously then would be important to take back to the rest of the team at the observation meeting, and share that with the team. And then these observations may mean that we will provide other opportunities for the children within the play room, or within outdoor play, for example, if we observe that they have had an interest in filling and emptying, there are lots of things we can do there through water play, through sand play, through the sensory area within the nursery, through outdoor play in gathering natural resources again. So its all about us using the observations to further develop that skill for that child in a wide range of settings.
Narrator:The early years framework emphasises the importance of making provision for children to play outdoors. Staff in early years settings therefore have an important responsibility to maximise outdoor experiences for children as it may be the only time they have during their day to play freely and safely outside.
Steve Halkett:Outdoor learning is so important to children, because in this day and age I don’t feel that they actually are allowed out to play as often as they should be, and it’s about making that feel safe for children, and them to feel secure when they are outside playing, and being able to actually experiment and explore on their own, knowing that there is an adult making sure that they are safe.
In Rainbow we take the children outdoors every single day, regardless of the weather, and we provide waterproof suits for the children, and wellingtons and the same for staff. We go out to both of our play areas to utilise them, with a committed staff group who believe in going outside, and I think that is a really important element, is that staff have to feel very confident about going outside with children. I feel that it should be part of the daily curriculum, because for a number of our children it is a chance to actually hone their skills that they have learned in the playroom, and make sense of the real world using those skills, or vice versa. So it is an everyday part of our activities.
Obviously gross motor skills are very important, and the outdoor space that that provides here allows that to happen in a good positive way.
Risk managements are done every day and they are ongoing all the time you are out; you need to be able to keep an eye on all the children, and prevent any accidents from happening before they occur. So staff are very aware of checking the environment for its safety, and observing all the children when they are out to ensure that they are safe, without actually burdening the child and restricting their freedom to experiment and explore.
Narrator:Many staff teams who recognise the outdoors as a rich resource strive to use it as creatively and positively as possible. Outdoor play does not need expensive equipment as the natural environment itself contains a wonderful range of materials which can be adapted, explored and enhanced in a variety of ways.
Narrator:Opportunities for challenge and managing measured risk helps promote young children’s confidence and motivation as they learn to persevere and adapt to different situations. Environments and resources which are skilfully planned and organised with challenge and risk in mind can be flexible and appropriate to suit each child’s interest and unique stage of development.
Sally Anne Peek:It is so important in society today that children are given opportunities to be active outdoors. And the children at Peek-a-boo are very fortunate because they can spend the entire day outdoors if they want to be. We are in a very fortunate position that we have got a garden that can accommodate all children of all age groups, so we don’t have to timetable children’s outdoor activity. For many children many opportunities to explore outdoors have gone; Peek-a-boo tries to redress this balance, we try to ensure that children have got opportunities, not just for physical active play, but also sensory play, to take risks, to climb, to do the kind of things that it takes a skilled practitioner to be able to stand back and allow them to persevere when they think they are going to fail.
Parents at Peek-a-boo know that their children are going to get dirty, they are going to get wet, they are going to get messy, because if you are giving them the real thing that is what’s going to happen. At Peek-a-boo whatever we do indoors we can do outdoors.
Stuart Ferrier:We deliberately looked for a nursery that was going to give us an environment that was going to allow Aaron to explore and discover things in his own time. Naturally that is going to have some risk attached to it, and we thought that if we had the right expertise, if you create that environment and manage that risk then that’s where we want him to be, and that’s what we found here at Peek-a-boo nursery.
I think more and more if they don’t develop the key movement skills at an early age then that can have real issues later in their life. And we know that if they can have strong motor skills it allows them to be competent and confident as they go through their lives; they are going to stay in a healthy lifestyle. And it’s just very important that they can actually learn by discovering themselves, and I suppose we just don’t want to see this cotton wool culture surround Aaron; he is going to be a wee boy, and let’s let him be a wee boy and enjoy it.
Risk assessments are absolutely important, they allow us to have the confidence that the risk is being managed, not just by the expertise of the staff, but by the environment which they are in. And that’s very important to give us the confidence that he is going into an environment where he will be safe and secure, but still be stimulated and having fun, and it’s getting that balance that’s so important.
Narrator:The benefits of risk taking can be considered as pathways to learning, as children learn effectively from discovering what works well, and what doesn’t. Being encouraged and well supported helps children to understand that not always getting it right is a valuable part of the learning process. A trial and error approach promotes resilience, improves self-esteem, and helps to generate a positive sense of emotional wellbeing.
Play is a powerful tool that promotes children’s development and learning, and their health and wellbeing. Play offers rich opportunities for children to continue to develop their natural sense of curiosity and wonder, and lays the foundations to develop the skills and attributes embedded within the philosophy of Curriculum for Excellence.
Narrator:What do you understand by risk and challenge in the context of play?
Identify and reflect upon how children experience risk and challenge through play in your setting.