Memorandum submitted by Play England
SUMMARY
1. Play England's concerns in relationship to
Ofsted inspection divides roughly into two discreet areas: where
play settings find themselves subject to Ofsted inspection and
their experience of this; and play provision within schools.
2. Staffed play provision: Play England is concerned
that where Ofsted inspectors are inspecting staffed play provision,
there is a lack of inspectors with specialist knowledge or training
about play and playwork, and this is leading to inconsistent and
inappropriate judgements being made by some inspectors due to
misunderstandings about the nature of the provision being provided.
We therefore recommend that Ofsted inspectors of staffed play
provision should attend mandatory training on play and playwork.
3. Play in schools: Play England welcomes the
recent emphasis in inspection on all of the Every Child Matters
outcomes and the recognition that these in turn have an essential
role in raising standards, increasing attendance and ensuring
children's well-being. Play is an example of where improvements
to non-academic provision can have great benefits across the school.
We recommend that inspection criteria should continue to take
account of non-academic factors.
4. Insofar as the performance of local authorities
and their partners across the whole area is to be monitored for
improvements, Play England also advocates that the recent moves
to ensure that provision for play and informal recreation for
children and young people is included within such inspection,
should be maintained.
5. There is a lack of understanding amongst
school inspectors of play of the role and importance of play activities
within school life and in contributing to the wellbeing of children
and their wider outcomes. This can lead to inspectors recommending
the removal of good play offers within schools, due to for example
unfounded health and safety fears. We recommend that training
for inspectors should include an understanding of children's play
and how it can contribute to school improvement, as well as improved
training on health and safety and how it applies to schools.
BACKGROUND
6. Play England is the national charity to promote
children's right to play. We aim for all children and young people
in England to have regular access and opportunity for free, inclusive,
local play provision and play space. We provide advice and support
to promote good practice, and work to ensure that the importance
of play is recognised by policy makers, planners and the public.
Play England is part of the National Children's Bureau and also
supports their submission.
7. Play is an essential part of childhood. Children
enjoy playing and it is how they spend much of their free time.
Although research increasingly suggests that play supports children's
learning development and educational attainment[68]
the primary aim of play provision is to ensure that children have
opportunities and space to engage in freely chosen, self-directed
play for its own sake.
8. Play services staffed by trained playworkers
support children in the creation of spaces where they can engage
in play that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically
motivated. Playworkers adopt a distinct style of intervention
which balances risk and the developmental wellbeing of children,
allowing children to determine the content and purpose of their
play, following their own ideas and interests.[69]
Research has established the added value
that staffed play provision provides[70].
9. Children's enjoyment of their right to play
is recognised within the statutory framework for coordinated local
services: the Children Act 2004 established a duty on local authorities
in England to co-operate in their provision for the enjoyment
of play and recreation as part of delivering improvements in outcomes
in the well-being of all children. This led to the inclusion in
the inspection framework of a key judgment that 'all children
and young people can access a range of recreational activities,
including play and voluntary learning provision'.
10. Increasing evidence of the constraints on
children's freedom to play, especially outside where the environment
is most conducive to healthy play opportunities, led to more a
more specific intervention by the last government, which launched
a national Play Strategy in April 2008. This included, as part
of the Children's Plan commitment to develop new school level
indicators for pupil wellbeing, looking with Ofsted at how schools'
provision for play can be identified and how this will feature
in future school inspections.
11. Also as part of the Play Strategy, in April
2009 a new indicator (NI 199) was introduced to the National Indicator
Set, measuring children and young people's level of satisfaction
with the parks and play areas in their local area, to be reported
against by Ofsted for every top-tier local authority as part of
the annual Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) process.
OFSTED INSPECTION
OF PLAY
PROVISION
12. Staffed play provision is subject to Ofsted
inspection when they either provide services to children under
six years old, and therefore are covered by the Early Years Foundation
Stage (EYFS) framework, or they sign up to the voluntary General
Childcare Register.
13. Play England is supportive of the welfare
standards required by both of these, which are important to ensuring
high quality provision and inspection clearly has a role to play
in this. However some staffed play settings are now taking themselves
out of registration with Ofsted[71],
while others which provide services to a wider range of children
are now choosing not to provide services to children under six
years old in order to not be covered by the EYFS, meaning that
younger children may miss out on this kind of provision. This
is for a range of reasons but include problems that arise with
the Ofsted inspection process.
14. There is also a voluntary quality assurance
scheme, Quality in Play, administered by Play England, which helps
to raise standards in the sector in a way that is more directly
relevant to the play sector.
15. In terms of play provision inspection, we
believe its main purpose should be to regulate, make sure that
welfare requirements are met and ensure that the provision provided
is of high quality. The key concern around Ofsted inspection for
the play sector is that many inspectors do not understand the
nature and purpose of play provision and playwork, and that this
is leading to inspection decisions that conflict with the very
purpose of the provision and are often inconsistent, and that
this may in fact compromise the quality of the provision instead
of helping it to improve. It is arguable that Ofsted inspections
should therefore focus on the welfare requirements only and leave
issues around playwork quality to specialist quality assurance
schemes as mentioned above; however a lack of understanding of
playwork in combination with the welfare requirements being interpreted
too rigidly can conflict with the play provision being provided.
16. Ofsted have produced guidance for inspecting
play provision: 'Regulating play-based provision'[72]
and have emphasised that inspectors should be familiar with the
approach a setting uses, such as the Playwork Principles, but
the experience of play providers in practice is patchy and inconsistent,
with some particularly negative examples being reported.
17. The problems that have been reported appear
to arise from a lack of understanding of play and playwork, and
Ofsted inspectors need to understand that these settings provide
play provision, not a learning setting. Children have an entitlement
to free time and leisure, as laid out in Every Child Matters;
arguably 'play is children's freedom'. Play settings provide for
this free time (in comparison to early years settings which are
designed for early learning), but play workers then find that
some inspectors focus their inspections on the learning and development
aspects of the EYFS, which is inappropriate for the settings.
18. Amongst its other benefits, free play provides
children with opportunities to explore their world, test boundaries,
take part in challenging activities, and learn about risk so that
they can manage it in their own lives. Part of the training of
playworkers is how to make professional judgements about such
risky activities through, for example, risk/benefit assessments,
and the play sector has a strong understanding of how to balance
this, including for example through guidance such as Managing
Risk in Play Provision[73].
Ofsted inspectors often do not understand this process and so
undermine it or think that such activities should be stopped -
taking away from children important opportunities to learn about
risk and danger and learn how to manage it. An example of this
is an adventure playground in Wolverhampton which was told to
stop activities involving fires, even though the play workers
were trained to manage these. Another example is of inspectors
saying that different age groups should not be playing together,
when this has benefits such as older children learning to take
responsibility for the younger children.
19. Some settings who are inspected under the
EYFS also report that the inspectors focus primarily on the children
covered by the EYFS, even though these may be the minority of
children in a setting, and this may lead to play settings concentrating
their work disproportionately on that age range at the expense
of older children.
20. As Ofsted's own guidance recognises the Playwork
Principles and that inspectors should be taking this into account,
the inconsistency in provision would suggest that there is a lack
of enough Ofsted inspectors adequately trained to understand playwork
in order to be able to inspect it correctly. Play England therefore
recommends that Ofsted inspectors of staffed play provision should
attend mandatory training on play and playwork.
PLAY PROVISION
IN SCHOOLS
21. Play England views the purpose of school
inspection as to evaluate school performance and contribute to
wider school improvement across a range of factors. We welcome
that Ofsted has in recent years widened its view of school effectiveness,
with more emphasis on all of the Every Child Matters outcomes
and the recognition that these in turn have an essential role
in raising standards, increasing attendance and ensuring children's
well-being.
22. Good quality play provision within schools
can have great benefits for both the school and the pupils. Schools
which have enhanced their provision, valued playtimes and made
their environments more playful have seen great benefits. As well
as contributing towards their children's wellbeing, with children
happier at school and eager to attend, schools taking part in
play in school programmes such as the Outdoor Play and Learning
(OPAL) project in South Gloucestershire and the Scrapstore Playpod[74]
scheme have reported improved concentration in lessons, higher
attendance levels, reduced accidents and reduced behaviour incidents
in playtimes.
23. The benefits that play can provide are a
good example of why, if schools are to continue improving, school
inspection needs to continue looking at all of children's outcomes,
including well-being, and so we recommend that inspection criteria
should continue to take account of non-academic factors.
24. Unfortunately, schools find many barriers
to providing good play provision, including playtimes being reduced
because of curriculum pressures, a lack of interesting play environments
(with too many schools having only a barren concrete playground)
and fears over health and safety. Ofsted inspections can sometimes
contribute to these barriers rather than helping to reduce them.
There have been reports, for example, of schools being told that
they should not allow children to run in the playground, not only
severely curtailing their play opportunities but also reducing
the health benefits of play. Wellesley Primary School in South
Gloucestershire went through a careful health and safety approved
process to improve their play provision and to allow 'scrap on
scrap' play fighting (where play fighting is allowed within safe
parameters to respond to children's desire for rough-and-tumble
play). Their Ofsted inspector judged that this should be curtailed,
even though there had been an 80% drop in accidents and incidents
in the play ground since the school improved its' play opportunities.
Other schools have reported that inspectors simply fail to recognise
the contribution their enhanced play provision has made to the
whole school.
25. Once again, the evidence from schools suggests
that Ofsted inspectors are lacking in understanding of the role
and importance of play activities within school life and in contributing
to the wellbeing of children and their wider outcomes. Whilst
school inspectors would not necessarily need the level of understanding
of playwork needed for inspecting out-of-school staffed play provision,
we recommend that training for inspectors should include an
understanding of children's play and how it can contribute to
school improvement, as well as improved training on health and
safety and how it applies to schools.
October 2010
68 Matrix Evidence/Play England, An economic evaluation
of play provision, 2010. Test scores refer to the Georgis
Criterion Reference Test (GCRT) Back
69
Playwork Principles, Playwork Principles Scrutiny Group,
Cardiff 2005 http://www.skillsactive.com/playwork/principles Back
70
Joost Beunderman, People Make Play, Play England/Demos,
2010, http://www.playengland.org.uk/resources/people-make-play?originx_7212ya_2568038300121m19v_2010333755u
Back
71
The Early Years Register, General Childcare Register and Early
Years Foundation Stage - Holiday Playschemes Impact Assessment,
SkillsActive 2009 Back
72
Regulating Play-based provision, Ofsted 2010, http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Factsheet-childcare-Regulating-play-based-provision
Back
73
David Ball, Tim Gill and Bernard Spiegal, Managing Risk in
Play Provision, Play England/DCMS/DCSF, 2008 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/play/downloads/Managing%20Risk.pdf
Back
74
http://www.childrensscrapstore.co.uk/Projects.htm Back
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