Scotlands education minister has endorsed moves to put play back into learning at school entry but will schools and teachers be ready for it? Simon Vevers reports
The move towards more play-based learning in Primary 1 in Scotland is gathering momentum with a further ministerial stamp of approval, a flurry of pilots in local authorities and a broadly enthusiastic response from teachers, pupils and parents in the areas where it has been introduced.
The process of re-establishing play as a key component in learning was given further impetus in late December, when education minister Hugh Henry said he wanted local authorities to have reviewed or be reviewing their approach to P1 education by August when the new academic year begins.
He told the Herald newspaper, One of the things I am particularly concerned about is the tendency in Scotland to start the formal education process at too young an age. He said he wanted to see a more gradual transition from nursery to primary school.
He was echoing the views of his predecessor Peter Peacock, who, in his ministerial response to the Scottish Executives Curriculum for Excellence proposals launched in November 2004, had called for curriculum guidelines for the three-to-five and five-to-14 age groups to be brought together to ensure a smooth transition in what children have learned and also in how they learn.
Mr Peacock said, This will mean extending the approaches which are used in pre-school into the early years of primary, emphasising the importance of opportunities for children to learn through purposeful, well-planned play.
Both East and North Ayrshire councils had taken account of the clear steer in Curriculum for Excellence towards active learning and trialled more play-based approaches. After HM Inspectorate of Schools also gave a thumbs-up to more active learning in its 2006 document, Improving Scottish Education, North Ayrshire relaunched its advice to schools on learning through play, giving teachers the latitude to use it with P1 pupils in their daily programmes and not as a reward when they had finished their work.
Kevin Kelman, headmaster of Burnside primary school in south Lanarkshire, says it was a suggestion from HM inspectors last year to give children more responsibility for their learning which prompted a radical rethink of P1 teaching at his school (see box).
Challenge for teachers
The change in pedagogy, with an emphasis on extending practices from pre-school to P1 to create a seamless transition, will present a significant challenge for many teachers, particularly those trained in the past 15 years and used to the formality embodied in the five-to-14 curriculum. Under the Scottish Executives proposals there is to be a curriculum running from three right through to 18 years of age.
Professor Aline-Wendy Dunlop, chair of childhood and primary studies at Strathclyde University, says the placements that her third-year students have in pre-school education equip them to understand the competence of small children and make an enormous difference to the quality of learning and teaching.
Emphasising the importance of playful learning, she argues that, as Scotland moves to a three-to-18 curriculum, we need professionals who can travel the three-to-eight age range.
She adds, My idea is that you put the curriculum into play rather than play into the curriculum. Teachers need an understanding of theory around play that they can use as a tool for their planning.
Alice Sharp, who runs the Experiential Play training company, says that there is a growing appetite for the proposed change at P1 and that her organisation has been helping several local authorities prepare their staff.
Laura Mason, service manager for education services in Perth and Kinross who has responsibility for the early years, says that 22 of the councils 79 primary schools are currently involved in piloting new play-based approaches at P1.
Some nurseries in Perth and Kinross are developing maths outdoors which can then be carried on in P1, while topics in environmental studies run between both nursery and P1 to aid transition. Teachers are still planning according to outcomes; it is just that the route to getting to them is going to be different, says Ms Mason.
Training staff
Joint training is taking place involving both teachers and early childhood educators - the Scottish equivalent of nursery nurses - and nurseries and schools are being urged to rotate their staff between both settings to build up the skills base of their staff. The training is being financed partly through Curriculum for Excellence funding, and schools are also receiving money to provide staff cover so P1 teachers can spend more time observing work in the nursery.
Ms Mason says that in order to become part of the pilot scheme, schools had to show just how they were going to keep parents informed of the changes from the start. She adds that most parents have been very supportive.
Trisha Boyd, quality and improvement officer at Argyll and Bute, says its pilot involving eight schools includes a variety of models to reflect the diversity and size of schools in this sprawling local authority area.
She says she hopes the move towards a play-based curriculum will particularly help the 20 per cent of young children who are stuck with an inappropriate curriculum in P1 and do not make progress.
But amid the general enthusiasm for the move to play-based learning at P1, some take a more cautious approach. Judith Gillespie, policy development officer at the Scottish Parent-Teacher council, says careful consideration needs to be given before everyone becomes overwhelmed with enthusiasm for a shift towards more play.
Emphasising that it is an issue of proportionality, she explains, I do have reservations about saying that we should continue nursery education longer, because at what point do you move forward? Its not because I dont think there is value in play as a way of teaching youngsters, nor is it because I think primary schools should be about children sitting at neat rows of desks, because they dont any more.
Bronwen Cohen, chief executive of Children in Scotland, says the changes at P1 should be welcomed. Neurophysiology tells us that until children are six or seven years old they require more access to free play and should not be subjected to too much of an ordered environment.
She praised Scottish local authorities for giving a lead on the issue and said she hoped her organisations proposed pilot programme of nature kindergartens could be linked into the P1 curriculum.
While introducing new arrangements by August means a race against time for many authorities, Trisha Boyd believes they are ready for the challenge. She says, It will work if we support teachers, giving them materials and ideas and not rushing them and telling them they have to do it. We need to give them details of the evaluation of the pilot schools so they can see how it can work in practice.
Case study: Burnside Primary School, South Lanarkshire
The concept of the traditional classroom in Primary 1, with children assigned to specific desks and poring over workbooks, is a thing of the past at Burnside primary school in South Lanarkshire as it introduces a play-based approach to learning.
Foldable desks and chairs, games and construction kits are now the order of the day as the school aims to ensure a smoother transition for young children from nursery to school.
Headteacher Kevin Kelman says,We have tried to reorganise the Primary 1 curriculum to allow children more responsibility for their learning and for it to be more activity-based. We are still trying to cover the five-to-14 curriculum, but through a programme of work involving games and play.
Mr Kelman, who is doing a doctorate at Strathclyde University on the transition from nursery to primary, says that research shows that it has been disjointed and that the pedagogical approach in P1 should mirror more closely the one used in pre-school settings.
We have established a group within our learning community, with representatives from all the local nurseries and primary schools, so we can share what we are doing with them and get feedback from them about improvements we can make.
Jacqueline Fraser, who has taught at the school for more than 12 years, says that she and some of her teaching colleagues were quite apprehensive to begin with because what we were being asked to do was so different.
However, she adds, We have managed to negotiate our way around what could have been problems, and both the children and the staff have had a positive experience. When we think back to the formal way we used to do things, we now wonder how we used that approach.
The children seem to be more motivated and taking more responsibility for their learning, which is what the inspectors hoped would happen. A child can choose an activity one day and then challenge themselves with something more difficult the next.
