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The Power of play

Presented by: Trace May

Hillcrest Normal Primary School

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Karakia

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Pepeha

Ko Taranaki te maunga

Ko Waingongoro te awa

Ko Aotea te waka

Ko Ngati Ruanui me Nga Ruahine ōku iwi

Ko Trace āhau

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First steps - 6 Years ago

Student Agency

Nathan Mikaere-Wallis - Neuroscience of 3 to 7 year olds

Caroline Bush -

Playbased Workshop

I started my journey trying to work out my passion in teaching. What subject was I really into. I couldn’t really hand on heart say that there was one. I loved to read and write but the skills you need to teach someone the building blocks on how to read and write are quite different.

What I did have a passion for was problem solving. How could I make what I new or had work for the children in my class. Then I learnt about student

Agency. In my previous career empowering people was hugely important to me. I realised that I had found my passion how could I make my students feel in control of their learning. What did I need to do to give them the power to direct how and what they needed to learn?

Then I saw Nathan Mikare-Wallis talk and learnt about the science behind the brain and how we shouldn’t really be expecting out 5 year olds to be reading and writing until they are closer to 7 as their frontal cortex is not developmentally ready for this kind of learning until then. What experiences should be we giving them - Play of Course.

After that I went to a workshop by Caroline Bush where she was researching how play could increase oral language is ELLP students in her school. She reiterated what Nathan had said and had a list of books and research papers that she was basing her work on. I read all of those and made a plan ready to start this year.

I have received outstanding support from our Principal and she has backed me 100%. This has allowed me to really embrace play in my class and see where it leads.

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Nathan Wallis

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Dramatic Inquiry Provocations or inspirations

Setting up items around the classroom to inspire the children’s creative play.

This was planned in response to the children interests.

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Socio - dramatic play

Socio-dramatic play is how the children make sense of their world.

They get to replay what they have seen happen around them. Take on the common roles in their world.

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Let’s All Be +

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Planning for play

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DI Coaching during Learning through play

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Weekly Observation and Teachin through play guide

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2022 Learning through play indicators

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Yr One Observations - Case Studies 2021

2021 Y1 Observation Case Study

The Year One team has been providing a Learning through Play environment for the last four years. Observations of children have been part of the teaching and planning during this time. This year the team was asked to be a part of a qualitative study around these observations. With the help of Viv we learned about the Broadhurst Social Play continuum that travels from the Associative Domain (where a child will watch and not engage in play with others), Social Domain (), Highly Social Domain () and Co-operative Domain (). One child from each of the 5 classes was chosen. There was a mix of two girls and three boys. With a range of ethnicities from Maaori, European, African, and Indian. The ages of the children were between 5 and half and 6. Children were chosen because they were having difficulties joining with other children to play. Our goal in Learning through Play is to help develop the social and emotional skills of children as this then aids them in coping in other learning areas as well.

Common Themes:

All started showing traits that were mainly in the Associative Domain at the start of the year.

All children had traits of being on the outside of social play at the beginning of the year.

All children were often non-verbal within play and seemed to lack the communication skills to interact with their peers.

All were better at verbally interacting with their teacher.

Significant teacher support was required to help these children become more confident in their interactions and 4 out of the 5 children were able to consolidate their skills within the Social Domain.

One child started to make progress and wanted to join his peers but due to his aggressive behaviour the other children would not let him join.