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What is most children's experience of the school playground? How would it look if designed for their own creative play? What could be the impact on children's learning?

7th Annual National PLAYLINK/Portsmouth City Council Conference 10am - 4pm, Thursday 4th March 2004, The Guildhall, Portsmouth.

Speaker Information

Roland Meighan D.Soc.Sc, Ph.D., B.Sc.(Soc)., L.C.P.., Cert. Ed.

Roland is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, writer, publisher, broadcaster, and consultant/researcher on learning systems, past present and future. His work on 'The Next Learning System' has been translated into more than twelve languages. He is currently Director of Educational Heretics Press, Director of Education Now Publishing Co-operative Ltd, Director/Trustee of the Centre for Personalised Education Trust Ltd. He was formerly Special Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham and Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Birmingham. His books include: Natural Learning and the Natural Curriculum; Learning Unlimited; The Next Learning System: and why home-schoolers are trailblazers; John Holt: personalised education instead of 'uninvited teaching'; Flexischooling; Theory and Practice of Regressive Education; A Sociology of Educating. He is an acknowledged Educational Heretic for his view that mass compulsory schooling is an obsolete and counter-productive learning system which should be phased out as soon as possible and replaced with something more personalised and humane.

Presentation
Natural learning and the natural curriculum: teaching tomorrow and the next learning system

Gunnell Selling-Norell

Gunnell is a principal or headteacher (in Swedish a 'rektor') for a school district in Härnösand. which is on the east coast of central Sweden. In her area she is responsible for two schools from pre-school class to grade 9 and four pre-schools ( from 1 to 5 years) covering in all about 600 children and 120 staff.

Presentation
Lessons from Sweden

Alison Clark

Alison has been a Research Officer at Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education since 1999. She has a teaching background in Primary Education. Her research interests include young children's participation and consultation, the role of the arts and artists in schools and participatory research methods. Recent projects include 'Listening to Young Children' funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and 'Young Children's participation: spaces to play', which has been carried out in collaboration with Learning through Landscapes. She combines her research with work as a practicing artist.

Presentation
Spaces to Play: gathering children's perspectives on the outdoor environment

Hattie Coppard

Hattie is an artist who designs playgrounds. She formed Snug & Outdoor to develop her innovative work in public art and playground design. It is a company of artists who design innovative play spaces which grow out of creative consultation with those who use them. Their projects often entail assembling teams of people with different skills such as sculptors, architects, horticulturalists, engineers, poets, dancers. Snug & Outdoor have an impressive track record for involving children and adults in highly successful projects. These include the ground-breaking Experimental Playground at Daubeney School in Hackney; a dynamic play landscape for a new city square; a sculptural multi-use teenage space in Brixton; an 8-ton floral sheep in Maidstone. We recently devised the Hackney Wick 'Artists and School Grounds' scheme and wrote the accompanying Good Practice Guide which was distributed to every school in Hackney Wick. Her clients include a number of London Boroughs, City Councils, housing associations, regeneration agencies and charities.

Presentation
The Experimental Playground

Zally Huseyin

Zally joined the Education Child Protection Service for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough during the initial stage of its development and worked there for 10 years. In her role of Training Co-ordinator she helped to develop a course, 'Playing Games for Positive Behaviour'. Recognising the importance of play and how it affects children's perceptions and personal skills, she launched Playwell, which works to raise awareness, understanding and acceptance of changeso as to make a difference to children's opportunities for and experiences of informal play. She has worked with many schools around the country and spoken at conferences and meetings of head teachers, Healthy Schools representatives and parents. Current partnership projects include 'Grounds for Improvement' with Learning through Landscapes, 'Safer Play At All Times' with Laing Homes and 'The Play Partnership' with North Hertfordshire District Council.

Presentation
Playing Games for Positive Behaviour: a whole school approach

Facilitator Information

Lucy Taylor, Head Teacher, Marksbury Primary School, Bath & NE Somerset

She wanted the children at her school to get the maximum benefit from their play. and they began by asking their children what they thought play should include, then organised meetings with all staff: teachers, learning support assistants, school governors and most importantly our lunchtime supervisors. A 'Whole School Grounds Project' followed: They spent a creative week redesigning their grounds, using Lottery funding. After 3 further meetings and work with the children, they had created a policy and an action plan for play and their lunchtime supervisors became lunchtime playleaders. Their pupil council were heavily involved in the organisation of play and their oldest children were running lunchtime clubs for younger children.

They then looked to extending play further, spent some money on additional games and created different areas for children to play. They have a very small playground so this is an ongoing problem solving activity for their children. They also have enabled staff to attend relevant training and held play afternoons for the school, including using volunteer helpers with their varying degrees of expertise.

Mary Davies, Inclusive Play Coordinator, Cardiff Council Children's Play Services

Mary has been working with children /young people for over 20 years. She became involved first in her daughter's playgroup then the after school club and holiday playschemes in the local community centre. She extended her age range to youth work, running a girls club and working in both statutory and voluntary youth clubs.

Her post with NCH (Wales) Options Project brought her into in working with children with additional support needs first through, recruiting and training. volunteers to support the children/ young people and then in her current post.

Her project work has widened considerably over the last few years and now has funding from the Welsh Assembly Government. This has enabled her to employ 2 full time and 2 part time staff, and several sessional workers, extending the service from holidays to after school provision. The newest part of the project is the Stepping Stones Worker who liaises with the schools, attending sessions in the class room, and forms a bridge for a child with additional support needs to attend their local play provision. This has strengthened the Play Section links with the Education Service. Not only does the child benefit but the service s/he receives benefits from the holistic outlook and inter service cooperation.

Johanna Korndorfer, Consultation and Participation Officer for Devonplay

Johanna was a founding member of the Exeter Kindergarten Project, a Steiner-based initiative in the city and is currently a school governor at her daughter's middle school.

Devonplay is a voluntary organisation dedicated to ensuring children's right to play and to be consulted as provided through Article 31 and 12 of the UN Rights of the Child. Through devonplay, she has consulted with children in both local communities and schools throughout Devon on play area and school ground design using Playing for Real, a consultation model developed by devonplay and cited as an example of best practice by the Council of Europe Social Policy Unit. .

Sylvia McGuckin, Play Development Worker, Nottinghamshire County Council

Sylvia has been a play worker for 25 years, having trained as a nursery nurse, teacher and social worker. She has held her current post for the past 15 years during which time she has worked in partnership with the voluntary sector to develop play resources and play training courses and has raised money for local community play developments.

She is currently working full time with 50 Nottinghamshire primary schools to develop child centred play through projects such as improving the quality of play at breaktimes, employing playworkers in schools, developing outdoor play space, extended school days, therapeutic play sessions for children not coping with the school day, traditional playground games and involving parents. This is a new project and has been well received by the schools. She has had many requests for advice and assistance with specific projects. Four schools have invited her to run an inset day on 'how to develop child centred play in school'.

Wendy Gill, Key stage 1 Manager, Trowell Primary School, Nottinghamshire

Having graduated in 1972 Wendy has spent all her teaching career in Nottinghamshire schools - Primary, Infant and Nursery and has been in her current post for 3 years. She has mentored students from Nottingham Trent University for 8 years and has enjoyed close links with the Faculty of Education.

2 years ago she submitted a bid for a Partnership Project. (The University awards up to £3000 to Partnership schools). Her focus was to 'improve the quality of play throughout the school and to plan and develop an outdoor play area for Foundation and Key Stage 1 children' and has worked closely on this with Frances Wells, an early years specialist from the University. The Project finished in 2003 and she submitted a final report detailing its development and assessing the outcomes for her school.

Barry Glasspell, Senior Play Services Officer, London Borough of Wandsworth

From 1987 to 2001, Barry worked as a volunteer and then playworker on a variety of holiday schemes and adventure playgrounds including one catering specifically for disabled children and those with special needs. In July 2001 he moved to the Town Hall offices in Wandsworth with responsibility for the three adventure playgrounds and the holiday play centres.

In this role he became responsible for the Lunch Pad initiative. This is part of the Children's Fund provision, offering playworkers and a drama group to deliver activities during the school lunch period. The initiative has been running since January 2003.