To ask you if you believe play should be part of the KS1 national curriculum?

[Cavalierchaos]

So I am a Year 1 teacher who is 'allowed' continuous provision in her classroom, but my fellow Year 1 teachers in my school, plus the headteacher and deputy head (who was an EYFS leader), say that the children shouldn't be 'playing with toys'. They believe that any use of the continuous provision must be 'purposeful' - that there must be teacher directed 'challenges' with end outcomes that the children must work towards.

I believe this is rubbish, and that play should be free and child led.

If you agree, would you sign this petition? Sorry if this is not allowed, but I came across it this weekend and I think it is so important that play, true play, is recognised in the Year 1 curriculum.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/729440

Your thread title is misleading

not a great start

Yes, absolutely! I’m another Y1 teacher who has continuous provision. Our EYFS & KS1 lead believes in the importance of it, and I’m really happy we get to offer some ‘play’ opportunity to our children 🙂

How is it misleading?

It's actually not allowed (petitions).

Also, it's devolved.

What's devolved?

We have it in wales as part of the curriculum for the whole of foundation phase which is up to and including year 2.

Yay! And are your children allowed to actually 'play' with it, or are they forced to do silly challenges like mine are?

Education? As well as other things.

Yes! Signed.

Woohoo!

Surely the focus of continuous provision is that it is learning through play, and I think for year 1 in particular it's a great idea, the start of year 1 in particular can be challenging for children moving up from reception which is more play based learning. My youngest school has introduced it from this September for year 1, and will add it September 26 for year 2. So my daughter going into year 2 this September will miss put on both.

I guess the skill is making the play fun and educational at the same time, on top of the broader social learning children do through play.

When I started out in teaching - about 20 years ago, Friday afternoon everyone had free play - the whole primary school. It was lovely and gave teachers an opportunity to actually talk with their students, catch up with those who had found something tricky in the week, listen to children read. The children loved it, they were creative and the collaboration and skills learnt were amazing. It got cut to an hour then disappeared. It was very sad.

A bit of both… Some activities are set up with an objective (but the children can work to the objective or not, it isn’t forced) and some are always general free play. I hope that makes sense!

I'm not a teacher so I'm not sure whether DS' school has this or not, he's year one and they have daily "choosing time" which seems to be playing, construction or arts/crafts, the children choose what they do for that time which I think is great. Is this what you're referring to or that play should be available all day?

My school thinks that continuous provision means set activities. It's so sad.

That sounds utterly amazing!

As somebody who has taught ks1 for many years and has children going through the system in way too much of a formal environment I agree and have signed!

Ooh yes I used to call it choosing time too. The children could go into any area (construction, small world, role play, fine motor skills etc) and do what they want.

Only now my headteacher has said we can't call it that anymore. Also we arent allowed to use the provision at all after the autumn term anymore. It's only allowed for the transition period.😞

So I used to let my class 'choose' whenever they finished their formal work, which worked really well. I also did specified times for choosing. And at the start of the year, we would have two groups working with the adults doing work whilst the other groups played, and then we'd switch it around.

Yeah that makes sense. I do like to have challenges for reading, writing and maths, but at most for the other areas I will have suggestions, like pictures of things they could make, but absolutely nothing forced and no having to 'prove' what they've done. That's another thing we have to do now, the children have to show us what they've made and 'prove' they've been productive and done the forced challenges.

I've just gone through process of choosing a primary school and have found in our area they were quite similar. I choose the school I did as they were abit more play orientated. If I had the choice I would have gone for much more play orientated, things like forest school (proper forest school, not diluted let's go for an hour and sit in wooded corner of playground), topic led curriculum.

Also signed!

My parents didn't put me into school until I was 7 (year 3. I think?) for exactly this reason - they wanted me to enjoy my childhood. I don't think it damaged my academic or work achievements. Plus I had an amazing childhood!

I personally think we.should.follow the Finnish system of offering free nursery (with plenty of play!) until compulsory schooling starts at 7!

I already signed, I fully agree and there’s studies in other countries when they start more formal education at a later age has no detrimental effect.

Signed. I think it's really important at that age they learn so much outside of formal lessons, DS already gets lots of homework, he's at GD for reading, maths and science but still has to do reading and comprehension work 5 nights a week, spellings 3 times a week, 45 minutes of easimaths, plus handwriting practice and other projects. We're lucky he loves to read anyway and we have always read to him every day but he's only six.
His school does have a big forest area, with a dipping pond, hobbit hut, kitchen garden etc and they spend a whole day out there every three weeks rain or shine, I just wish more of it would be like that and less hot housing. It's a state primary with a very mixed demographic 4 form intake (was 5 forms until 2 years ago) and 38% PP. DS gets lots of support at home but I can see that not all of his classmates do. You can see the difference in their attainment already and whilst I'm pleased DS is doing well he probably doesn't need to be at the level he is at his age.

The best primary teacher I ever had did a lot of this. He gave us choosing time but he also taught us how to play with cuisinaire rods and origamy and electric motors and amazing things like that, and then let us get on with it. We were gutted when we had to go back to a normal teacher the next year.
That was year 6 in school.

signed