Reviews - Playwork
What a refreshing book and
I feel embarrassed that I
haven't had the opportunity
to look at it before. Too often play settings get
bogged down in protocols,
policies, procedures and
other documents that create a mountain of paperwork.
When written and filed away in a colourful binder, it
represents 'quality'.
Quality Assurance schemes can become a paper based
exercise, and the relationships between playworkers,
children and young people, and the quality of the play
environment shivers into insignificance. These are rarely
recognised and appreciated for their value and the
benefits they can bring children.
It is refreshing to have a quality framework that puts play
back at the heart of children's lives. A brilliantly simple
quality assessment framework, that is non threatening
and easily achievable. To be used as a self assessment
tool, it will help playworkers reflect on their
understanding of play, their skills, knowledge and
experience, and assist them to identify further training
needs.
Providing clear definitions and explanations of the
language used, and split into clear developmental
grades, I feel this framework goes some way towards
bridging the gap, and recognising the difference
between a setting which achieves a quality assurance
scheme and a setting providing a quality play
environment.
The only negative is that it doesn't make clear whether it
is a tool that can be used by anyone, or whether as an
organisation you should register to use it. Further
guidance would be most useful.
Written by Janet Orrock, Play
development Co-ordinator, Northumberland Early
Years and Childcare Service.
'The First Claim - desirable
processes' is the second
book published by Play
Wales and as this book is
the follow up to 'The First
Claim... a framework for
playwork quality assessment' (see review above), it is advisable that you read and
understand the first book before using the advanced
quality assessment frameworks laid out in this book.
This book is divided into nine separate sections and is
more in depth and detailed than the first book. The two
main sections focus on play mechanisms and
intervention modes. The section on "play mechanisms"
looks at, and tries to define the different behaviours
displayed by children when they play. Intervention
Modes describes and explores the different ways that
playworkers may interact with children in the play
environment.
Similar to 'The First Claim', this book encourages
playworkers to be reflective of themselves, the play
environment and their practices.
For those playworkers seeking a variety of practical
assessment frameworks to support and develop their
playwork settings or even their own personal practice I
would recommend the use of both of these books.
Although, unless you are confident with the content of
'The First Claim... a framework for playwork quality
assessment', I would not yet try to use 'The First Claim - desirable processes'.
Written by Sarah Turton, Out of School Coordinator for Chesterton Busy Bees Club.
This is a book to read not at the start of the new academic
year, when we're all full of energy and hope, but instead
sometime around the middle of January, when the festivities
are over, the budget cuts have started to bite and that school
caretaker/Ofsted inspector/parent is really starting to grind
you down. This is because this book will warm the
hearts of playworkers and everybody else who
believes that children are capable, competent
beings who are being sold short by the current
adult obsessions with health and safety,
supervision and sanitisation of childhood. As a
personal polemic it is an easy read with lots of
interesting references from popular culture to
academic literature and the arguments will strike
many chords with those of a playwork
persuasion. It is of course important to bear in
mind that there are always other ways of
looking at these things, but in the middle of
January, who cares?
Written by Shelly Newstead, Common Threads.
Links to other review sections:
Activities and Games,
Behaviour,
Management,
Outdoor Play,
Play,
Play in Schools,
Playwork Theory,
Play Therapy,
Playwork,
Rights and Responsibilities.
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