Create An Exciting, Imaginative Play Space With Just Crates, Pebbles And A Length Of String
Not every playground has to rely on expensive equipment, and your children's fun levels shouldn't be limited by your budget
In the run-up to the festive season last year, we decided to cut out the middle man (tree) and give the baubles and tinsel straight to the kittens. They’d only strip the tree bare if we didn’t. It’s always interesting to watch them play. It’s a deeply innate way of preparing them for life in the big wide world. If you can kill that bauble stone dead, chances are you’ll be able to fell a small mouse for your tea when you’ve grown up.
The reasons why children play are not dissimilar – although it is wise to discourage them from snacking on rodents. Children play to develop social, emotional and physical literacy. They play to explore what they can and can’t do safely, and to understand their limitations – and potential.
High-quality play
How play is valued in schools can vary from the basic level of turfing children out twice a day to run off excess steam on a flat tarmac surface, to the more in-depth provision of quality play landscapes and experiences that have clear links to learning and wellbeing. Most schools are somewhere in the middle.
The key to developing a successful play strategy, or ‘playtime revolution’, is understanding where you are on the continuum, where you would like to be, and how you might get there. It’s also important to ensure that everyone shares the aspiration for more high-quality play experiences. One person’s revolution is another person’s catastrophe.
One way of ascertaining staff attitudes to play experiences is working through a set of questions together, such as:
• Where and how did you play outdoors as a child?
• What did you learn as a result?
• How much play of this kind do you see in your school playground?
• What excites you about the possibility of introducing this kind of play?
• What worries you?
• Who would you need to get on board?
• How might you involve your community in this?
Let them lead
Adult involvement in a child’s play experience is a much debated area. Undoubtedly, children love the adults they associate with to play with and alongside them, but they also need to drive their own play experiences.
Children innately know where they need to learn and develop, and break is a great time to try out new life strategies in a safe and nurturing environment.
By allowing students to lead play experiences, and by following their cues, we can learn a lot about how a child thinks and learns, and the things that scare and interest them. This is all useful learning that can be taken back into the classroom and used to support individualised learning strategies, as well as social and emotional development.
So how do we start a playtime revolution in our schools? Maybe we should start with talking to the children. Try these five key questions:
• Where do you like to play best and why? • What do you most enjoy about playtime? • What do you like to do in the playground? • Why is playtime outside important? • Who do you like to play with?
Loose parts
How often have you heard from a friend that they purchased an expensive toy for a young child, only to have them show more interest in the box it came in?
A child’s imagination will develop very powerfully if they are allowed to choose and manipulate non-bespoke items for their play experiences.
The provision of ‘loose parts’ in the school playground helps to prolong the development of problem-solving, creative, imaginative and interactive skills. This could include:
• Logs and slices of wood • Tarpaulins • Ropes • String • Sand • Earth • Rocks and bricks • Water • Tubing or guttering • Crates
I also recommend using the topography of your playground to create some interesting high play value landscapes with features such as:
• Tunnels • Woodland • Mounds • Platforms • Dens • Willow structures
While bespoke pieces of play equipment are always exciting for children, they tend to be more costly and can reduce play value as they are generally designed for a single purpose, such as sliding, climbing or swinging.
The ‘tidy’ factor
There is a tendency in school grounds to lean towards the ‘tidy’ and to have spaces that are nice to look at, with play equipment put away at the end of each session.
This is very understandable, particularly if there are prospective parents viewing your school. However, an ordered playground almost certainly holds less play value. For example, a den that is built and left up for tweaks and architectural changes, additions and changes of use over a term will help children to develop a strong sense of ownership, encourage them to plan and make changes, and learn from mistakes over time. It will increase in value the longer it is allowed to be a part of their evolving play experience.
Case study
With support from LTL in Scotland, funding from Inspiring Scotland’s Go Play fund and the input of pupils, staff and the wider community, Thornlie Primary School has created what might be the most exciting school playground in Scotland.
Pupils enjoy boulder and timber features that support clambering, balancing, and coordination, den building frames, a large bespoke sandpit, and loose materials such as pebbles, bark, logs, branches and water. There are also dips and hillocks that encourage running, climbing and rolling, and shrubs and willow features to hide in and run around.
Alongside this, the school has developed new policies and risk-benefit frameworks, invested in teacher and playground supervisor training and liaised closely with parents and the council’s school estate managers.
A comparison of pre and post-project playground observations demonstrates significant improvements in children’s physical activity, social interaction and creativity. The value of what’s been done at Thornlie is clearly measurable in terms of attainment, attendance, behaviour – no exclusions last year – and school ethos. A playground supervisor at the school says, ‘It’s been great to see older pupils so motivated to share play space with younger ones. There’s more to play than football or nothing, and there’s some real initiative and creativity in the building with loose materials, for instance, from a number of those non-footballers!’ The kind of adventurous natural play created at Thornlie stimulates learning, develops confidence, improves health and enables urban children to develop a love for the natural world.
IS IT SAFE?
‘Play – and particularly play outdoors – teaches young people how to deal with risk. Without this awareness and learning they are ill equipped to deal with working life. We should not deny them the opportunity to learn by taking risks. Seeking to protect them from every conceivable hazard, rather than sensibly managing the genuine risks they face, ultimately leaves them in harm’s way, not to mention robbing them of memories that last a lifetime’.
Judith Hackitt, former chair of the Health and Safety Executive
Juno Hollyhock is executive director of Learning Through Landscapes, a UK charity dedicated to enhancing outdoor learning and play for children; for more information, visit ltl.org.uk or follow @ltl_outdoors.
