Anyone else want to hug this teacher?

[Sadworld23]

Just sounds so much more realistic than getting kids to sit in front of a desk all day..
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jun/11/headteacher-bringing-play-based-learning-back-to-classroom-tina-farr

The government set standards that are impossible to achieve with a solely play based curriculum in year 2. Also, who on earth can afford bean bags and new seats. We can’t even afford screws to fix broken chairs. This article is pure propaganda. Designed to make teachers feel like shit for not spending thousands of their own money on their classrooms.

Well, the school sound like they’ve managed it - flexible seating doesn't need to be expensive and my daughters’ school often requests and gets donations from marketplace/people having clear outs. Things don’t need to be brand new.

How much learning actually happens during worksheets and cut and sorts? I’m glad that the school has taken a different approach. If the children are better behaved, then less time is wasted correcting behaviour, and the teacher can actually teach.

I just read a article on Finland's Education system which is play based to 7 years. Sounds similar.
@hopspot sorry you feel it's propaganda, seemed a bit inspirational to me, someone breaking the model with the boundaries set.
And from my perspective, a more realistic approach with little learners.

I'm not sure what anyone would gain from such an article as propaganda but I guess you have some insight. Sorry if it was triggering.

Are you a teacher @Sadworld23

I’m not triggered. I’m just a very experienced teacher. I’ve had many years of reading articles such as that.

The government guilt trip teachers into constantly thinking they’re not doing enough.

Just spend more of your own money on resources…
Just spend more of your weekends working…

It’s for the children don’t you know?

Teachers know what’s best for their children. They battle to achieve it every day. They also know the massive limitations of funding, time and staffing. Plus their own mental wellbeing is important. The government play on the feeling of guilt with articles such as this that mean staff continue to go above and beyond every day and prop up a hugely broken system. They do it for the children.

That sounds like all the public elementary schools in the area in the US where I live.

@hopspot that saddens me. Not BC I didn't know teaching is underfunded and supported by amazing teachers who find stuff themselves. That's always been the case, my mom was a teacher in the 80's and bought stuff for kids. My DH is a teacher and buys stuff for lessons so that's not new.

What saddens me is that as a teacher you've been made to feel guilty, whether or not this article is a truth or dramatised, your profession, which you chose, and I think you probably enjoy outside the politics, has made you suspicious, weary and distrustful, and that's not good.

Fwiw I work in the NHS and yes we do sometimes have 'glory posts' but often for us they are someone had a great idea and was able to run with it and have a successful outcome.

I hope it works. However we had a school where I live that broke all expectations, no desks etc. Teachers paid to look round and visit and it was deemed to be the new way. A few years later when results were not achieved etc it quietly returned to the traditional way of teaching.
I do think that education needs a rethink. Children’s needs have grown etc but whilst we have all these targets, no money, not enough staff, I’m not sure it’s possible.
I do hope it works though and other schools can genuinely learn from them and more importantly, those above take note.

I completely support this approach. I bet it particularly benefits boys.

I’ve been in reception classes in Wakes which are meant to be play based, but aren’t, and seen a lot of bored, uninspired kids, particularly boys, really struggling. I remember my own son telling me how he would struggle to sit there ( and he was in p5/ p6) and he would get overwhelming urges to get up and just run and run, because he couldn’t stand all the sitting. That much sitting is bad for adults, so it’s really bad for young children who are even more strongly wired for movement. It probably doesn’t help that most primary teachers are women, so never experienced classrooms as a boy, and all teachers will have been the academic kids who liked book based learning.

My child's school is play based reception- year 2- continuous provision. I'm a secondary teacher so don't understand it! But my child is thriving.
The school asks for termly donations from parents to prop this up though. I'm happy to pay but I think the fact it relies on funds from outside really says it all.

You’ve reported a thread about play based learning for deletion?!

I would really love children to experience this environment but I genuinely don't know how schools do it and achieve the necessary results. Handwriting expectations for example are pretty high and you can easily see the difference in writing when a child has their chair pulled in and is sitting properly compared to when they're all skew-whiff at a table, so I just find it hard to imagine they can do decent enough writing with a clipboard on a bean bag.

No just my post.

My view is this just tells you the targets are wrong. I had been appalled by what my children were expecting to learn in primary. Huge amounts of really dry grammar that I have never known or needed in my five decades on the planet. There is no need for kids, many of whom were artillery mastering reading itself, to know this. Maths far in excess of what we were expected to learn at primary. It’s too much.

I remember hearing Finnish secondary school teachers saying ‘’School is about finding out what you love’. Imagine if we had a school system based on that.

But we also need to value educators more. In Finland only the best of the best get onto teacher training courses. It’s highly competitive and a high status career, like being a doctor. They train for seven years, whereas many of our teachers have a one year qualification and, in primary, are supported by TAs with a level 3 qualification ( roughly equivalent to an A-level) , and may not even have this). And these least qualified people are often set to work with the kids who are struggling the most. So it’s not just about the curriculum, we need a whole scale rethink of what value we place on education and how we understand children in the whole (Finland sees kids as whole people, which is why they don’t burden them with homework, believing after school is time for family, friends, hobbies and pursuing the things you love).

I think this supports what I said about targets being wrong. Good handwriting skills is based on an education system for a world that disappeared some decades ago. How often does anyone write as an adult now?I’m pretty old school but even I extremely rarely write anything that someone other than me will ever read. People type or dictate now. Schools were be better teaching good typing or dictation skills.

I don’t disagree but the government won’t do it sadly. There is no respect or value for the profession.

The Ofsted reform has shown us that they tell us they’re listening but really they are just tinkering around the edges with no appetite for the real reform that is needed. The curriculum review will be the same.

We need less pressure to jump through hoops in primary. Children need to be allowed to develop a love of learning, exploring, questioning. Develop social skills and resilience away from screens and have a good, strong understanding of the foundations of English and maths whilst being given the freedom and opportunity to explore and enjoy the arts etc.

Sadly it won’t happen though.

This is my daughter’s school (and was my eldest until this year). It’s an absolutely amazing school, and the play based curriculum works very well.

As a school they don’t have more money than any other, and if they want something extra they have to ask the PTA (who are very active).

My children's school do a similar thing (not removing the furniture but I'd love this). They have thrived. Both children are ND and feel trapped when forced to sit for long periods, all of my DC teachers have let them wander around and play whilst teaching as they are listening, they just need to move whilst doing it.

Both of my children are working at greater depth across the board whereas a lot of my friends with ND children at different schools are now school refusing as they can't cope.

I'm sorry if some teachers feel they are made to feel guilty, you are amazing to choose to educate our children and I couldn't do it. BUT there are other ways to teach, I would implore you not to close your mind off to alternative thinking in this space.

Where did she get the funding to chuck out all the tables (value approx £275 each/around £2000) and chairs (value approx £600 for 30), replace them with beanbags (approx £300), standing desks (so height adjustable? another £275+ each), 'spinny stools', 'lap trays' and so on?

I'm also wondering how this helps strengthen posture and prevent children from learning not to poke their head forward and down.

Don't get me wrong, I detest the idea of having to sit constantly for hours on end, but if it's actually 'The Y2 teacher asked if we could dump the broken furniture out of her room before somebody was seriously hurt and I'm claiming the credit for the PR', 'we didn't have the money to replace anything, so got some stuff from a school that's closed down' or 'I didn't replace two TAs this year and the lady in Reception hasn't had a payrise since she started in 2012, so I could afford the trifling thousands this cost to really enhance the school's PR', that's different to 'This Head Teacher is inspirational (and you'll probably see her at various conventions and for bespoke training sessions soon, following the launch of a book that's going to have a name like "Bringing Play Back"),

So no, I'm not feeling the slightest urge to hug anybody - I'm feeling experience based suspicion about what the hagiography actually represents.

We are well staffed and the school is not run down. We have all sorts of things that Mumsnet threads tell me have vanished elsewhere - multiple trips a year, a library, proper SEN provision, a sandpit, chickens, play equipment. So your suspicions are unfounded I’m afraid.

The approach you read about in the article is deliberate and well thought out in delivery. It’s not PR spin.

A school group in the United States called Alpha schools basically spends two hours of highly academic learning every day via an artificial intelligence powered teacher.

They then spend the remaining four to six hours at school learning what they call "life skills".

A different approach is possible but only if people really want it.

I think it is a nice idea but would suspect that the school's demographic is what makes this possible in the sense of a lot of children possibly being where they need to be (or beyond) academically and being willing and able to fill any gaps that arise.