Work Matters: Training - Inclusive Play - Learning to think outside the box

The Early Years Foundation Stage framework emphasises that it is the right of every child to be provided with the opportunity to play in their own unique manner.

The framework states that play enables children to use and extend the experiences they have to build up ideas, concepts and skills. While playing, children can express fears and re-live anxious experiences. Play scenarios also give children the chance to control their environment. They can try things out, solve problems and be creative, take risks and use trial and error to find things out.

It is a process that no child should be inadvertently barred from. Whatever their social and economic background, gender, religion, ethnicity, ability or special educational need, children should all be able to access and engage with the play experience their setting offers them.

In order to deliver inclusive play, training that delivers knowledge and awareness to individual staff and teams can be invaluable.

Broadening staff outlook

Training priorities will differ depending on the local context and staff experience. For Joanne Barton, owner of Fledgelings Day Nursery in Ramsgate, Kent, staff awareness is the most important consideration. 'Training is needed to help practitioners look at their perceptions and attitudes and become aware of whether their belief system is influenced by their own background and experiences,' she says. 'Then they must identify whether this belief system is influencing the provision they deliver in a way that makes it difficult for children who come from different backgrounds or who have different needs to access opportunities in a beneficial way.'

Lynn McNair, from Cowgate Under Fives Centre in Edinburgh, believes that allowing children to lead the direction of their own play experiences is vital. The centre conducts internal training based around the principles of Friedrich Froebel, the creator of the kindergarten concept, who believed that every child has unique needs and capabilitities.

'Children choose how to use the materials on offer and for how long,' she says. 'Staff observe, listen to what the children are saying and doing and, with a thorough knowledge of each individual, decide when it is necessary to guide, support and suggest towards shared principles - like fairness, sharing and consideration for others - that staff have agreed with the children in advance.'

Ms McNair recalls a particular instance where a group of children got together their own petition to say they no longer wanted to take part in community singing. 'Instead, rather than have a totally open-ended option, they were asked to think of something else they could do for the community,' she says.

Access all areas

Courses provided by Acorn Childcare Training highlight the importance of ensuring that a setting's physical environment is right.

Managing director Anna Hanks says, 'Books, posters, photographs and other positive visual images of people from a wide range of backgrounds will make the setting seem welcoming to all. This also encourages practitioners to think about the accessibility of their physical environment.'

She adds that providing a range of activities that take place on a variety of physical levels, that are differentiated so that children of various abilities can take part, and that don't rely wholly on knowledge of the English language, are key to delivering an inclusive play experience.

Practitioners need to bear in mind that often it is parents rather than children who can arrive at a setting with pre-existing attitudes about what children should and should not be doing. A three-year-old is unlikely to be aware of their social and economic background and how it affects their interactions with others, but parents may be sensitive if they perceive their child to be different from his or her peers in some way.

Anna Hanks believes it is important to build on what the child already does and knows when designing an inclusive play experience. 'You need to gather as much information as you can from parents and carers about what the child is used to and talk to the child to find out what sort of play they enjoy,' she says. 'Many typical nursery play activities may be suitable for children from all backgrounds, but others may need to be tweaked a little so children will be able to take part in, enjoy and benefit from them.'

Out of the comfort zone

If children are to develop an appreciation of things other than those which they already know, they will need to gradually come out of their comfort zones. Children are likely to become more accepting in their attitudes towards others when group activities promote awareness and encourage interaction.

Acorn Childcare Training advocates that experiences must prepare children for, not shield them from, the realities of life. Unless they have a broad-based play and learning experience in their formative years, it is all too easy for a child to choose an insular path.

Acorn advises that arranging a home corner so it has a range of cooking instruments and ornamental decorations from a variety of cultures will not only make those children who can identify these items with home feel comfortable - it will broaden the horizons of children who have never seen them before, helping them realise that all homes are not the same as their own.

Shelly Newstead from Common Threads, a playwork training provider with 14 years' experience, believes that high quality playwork methodology is inclusive by its very nature.

'All children need and have the right to play - not just the ones who look like the adults in the setting or who play like most of the other children in the setting, and not just the ones who communicate in the same way that the adult does,' she says.

Common Threads courses stress the importance of practitioners being prepared to be flexible in how they organise play. 'Work with whatever children bring through the door with them, whether that's a bad mood, a bad leg, bad language or a bad haircut,' says Ms Newstead. 'Do not rely on pre-existing knowledge of what children are generally "like", because this probably won't have any bearing on how they are today, or with how they want to play.'

Under Froebelian principles, Lynn McNair agrees that true inclusivity can only be achieved by focusing on the individual. 'Inclusive play means focusing on the needs of every child - not just those about whom a value judgement relating to their level of vulnerability has been made.'

Further information: www.commonthreads.org.uk; www.childcaretraining.co.uk; www.crechendotraining.co.uk; www.experientialplay.com