A new report published by The Children’s Alliance – THE POWER OF PLAY: BUILDING A CREATIVE BRITAIN, talks about simple, inexpensive, and joyful ways to address many of the major challenges facing society and its children; addressing the alarming mental health crisis and obesity epidemic and helping to prepare children for an ever-changing work force. The solution that is all too often overlooked and neglected is – play.
Did you know that children spend as much time in the playground as they do in their English lessons each week?!
Well, here at Poplar Farm Primary School, we are proud to offer an excellent outdoor learning curriculum including our new Forest School. However, with this new report being published, we decided to act fast and ask our community for help, and wow, did you deliver!
We have been happily inundated with donations of play items that have massively impacted the children in such a positive way. The donations have been wide ranging, from full size prams, to lego and construction play vehicles, through to den building equipment.
We have changed our Key Stage playground areas to be free flowing, so that children can play together, with boys and girls voluntarily choose to play with anything and everything. This enables the children to interact with the world and begin to learn and understand social relationships.
All pupils can access all areas and play with any equipment or activity or person they wish, regardless of what age they are. Here are some photos showing just how positive this has been for our children here at Poplar:
To read the full Power of Play Report, please visit the Children’s Alliance website: https://childrensalliance.org.uk/working-group-reports/
