It is important to define and understand babies' and young children's play and the role of play in children's development.
Picture a three year-year-girl with her own roll of sticky tape. It is New Year's Day and she is not using the sticky tape in the way you or I would use it: she is running delightedly ahead of the roll as the sticky tape unravels behind her, sticking itself to everything it comes into contact with, including the floor and the door, before it wraps itself round her legs. Momentarily she is thrown forward, at this point the adults around her are poised to remonstrate with her, in order to protect her from harm, rather than spoil her fun. Indeed there is confusion about whether she should have the roll of tape at all. But within a moment she is off running again this time stopping in amazement as the last bit of the tape is unleashed from the roll and with a great whooshing sound it gathers itself into a muddled heap behind her as the tension is released: 'It's like a great big party popper, it's like a great big party popper' the three-year-old shrieks time and again with delight, falling to the floor laughing out loud.
So is this play? If it is how do we know? Would we want children in pre-school settings to be doing what this three-year-old did, we may wonder, as we perhaps shudder at the thought of the expense of all that sticky tape being used up to no purpose when our budgets are at rock bottom.
DEFINITION OF PLAY
In search of a universal definition of play, Gwen Gordon, a creative consultant, who began her career creating muppets for Sesame Street, suggests that the search for a universal definition of play is 'pure folly', J while Robert Fagan, a leader in studying animal play goes further arguing: 'The most irritating feature of play is not the perceptual incoherence, as such, but rather, that play taunts us with its inaccessibility. We feel that something is behind it all, but we do not know, or have forgotten how to see it'.
Clearly something was behind the play of our three-year-old she was having fun, finding out what happens when you unravel a roll of (cheap) sticky tape, unconventionally trailing it along the floor as opposed to using it to fix things together, amazed and delighted when it mimicked the sound and trajectory of a party popper, catapulting from her hands then falling into a sticky heap behind her. We conjecture she is perhaps connecting previous experience of a party popper, seen at a Christmas party? So what is behind it all?
In a review of the connection between play and learning the following definition of play is proposed: 'Play is often defined as activity done for its own sake, characterised by means rather than ends (the process is more important than any end point or goal), flexibility (objects are put in new combinations or roles are acted out in new ways), and positive affect (children often smile, laugh, and say they enjoy it)'.
This is helpful for two reasons - firstly because if we go back to our three-year-old with the sticky tape it perfectly matches what was described: the activity was done for its own sake, the process involved finding out what could be done with the sticky tape; the sticky tape was being used in a new way; there was positive affect - she laughed and shrieked with delight when the 'party- popper' sound was made. Secondly it provides us with clear criteria for assessing play per se, which allows us to distinguish it from other activities such as work, which has a definite goal.
PURPOSE OF PLAY
So what, if any, purpose is there in play and what role does it have in children's development? Play has many purposes and its role in young children's development appears to be far-reaching. Many studies suggest that play in 'juveniles' (the young of a species) is functional both at the time it takes place and because of its contribution to future adaptability which supports the juvenile's survival into adulthood.
This is because play is believed to afford 'opportunities for behavioural and cognitive innovation and subsequent practice of newly developed behaviours and strategies'. This explanation suggests play provides the developing child (or animal) with a way of understanding their 'world: or 'niche, through offering them a safe means of exploring a range of behaviours, relationships and ways of being.
In a discussion of play and learning Hirsh-Pasek supports this view concluding that: 'play is a central ingredient in learning, allowing children to imitate adult behaviours, practise motor skills, process emotional events, and learn much about their world'.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is a lengthy period in which, when babies and young children play in safe or familiar environments, provided they are free from stress, they find out about themselves and the world through interacting with people and objects and through their appropriation and use of objects and mastery oflanguage. So practitioners may ask whether children can go it alone, and be left to get on with their play, without the help or involvement of adults.
To explore this question we will shortly consider the status of play in the original and revised versions of the EYFS focusing on how play and learning are seen to be connected.
THINKING, REFLECTING, DOING
The Revised EYFS In Practice - Thinking, reflecting and doing! by Ann Langston & Jonathan Doherty (Featherstone, £18.99, ISBN 9781408163948)
This invaluable and accessible book outlines the changes under the revised EYFS, examines their importance and looks at the essentials of delivering best practice: child development, the environment, engaging parents in their children's learning, positive interactions with children, and play. Each section ends with a review of the material, organised under 'thinking, reflecting and doing'.
