LET CHILDREN PLAY

Last week I attended the NSW Catholic School’s Principal Conference in Sydney. The speaker I was most interested in was Pasi Salhberg who now works for the Gonski Education Centre and is here to give advice to the NSW Department of Education. He is one of the world’s leading researchers in Education and set policy for Finland which is acknowledged as having one of the best performing education systems in the world. His new research is about the importance of ‘play’ for children.

His research states that: In the United States; only 13 states have laws that mandate recess time during the school day, and 8 have recommendations for physical activity in schools.

England: “Nurseries not preparing children for school”, says Ofsted.

Mexico: Many parents don’t want to pay for the time their children play or sleep in Early Childhood Centres.

Australia: "The word 'play' has become problematic in Australian schools.”

In Australia we are trying to make preschools more about literacy and numeracy skills and less about play.

A majority of parents (88%) believe that children are under pressure to grow up too quickly. Fewer parents are playing outdoors with their children.

Parenting paradigms are shifting to overprotecting children from risk-taking. Parents believe that their children will benefit more from structured activities as opposed to unstructured free play.

Coupled with less play is the rise of screen time. Research is showing that this is a real danger- More hours of screen time are associated with lower well-being in ages 2 to 17. - Twenge and Campbell, 2018

High users show less curiosity, self-control, and emotional stability. - Twenge and Campbell, 2018

There is directional association between screen time and poor performance on development screening tests among very young children. - Madigan, Browne, Racine, Mori, & Tough, 2019

Play is important and develops lifelong skills of communication, negotiation, cooperation, sharing, and problem-solving.

So the challenge to us as educators is how do we create more play in school and convince policy makers of its importance. Pasi Salberg suggested adding more hours of homework in a week –not more literacy and numeracy but time for unstructured play and sleep. Children should be having 9-10 hours a night and you need an hour of no screens to properly allow your brain and body to get ready for sleep.

Interesting food for thought to improve education in Australia –More play, less screens and more sleep- and none of these cost us a cent.