Loose parts in play

Playtime is the time most of us actually remember from school. How can loose parts - junk, stuff - help schools make playtime a key part of the school day?

Back in the early 1990s I was a primary school teacher. Mostly I was privileged to work with three to six year-olds, but I also got to cover every age group the year I did supply teaching. And, of course, we all had to do playtime cover too.

So when about 10 years ago Michael Follett — the author of Making Playtime a Key Part of the School Day in our Outdoor Library — first took me to see a group of schools he was working with in South Gloucestershire, I was dumbfounded. I mean seriously gobsmacked, bowled over and utterly, totally delighted.

On a slightly damp Tuesday lunchtime the head teacher of the first school on our itinerary showed us around and it was the noise that got me. Or rather the absence of a noise. There was no sign of that slightly stressed whine that is oh so common towards the end of a damp Tuesday lunchtime, the whine of slightly stressed children. Instead, there was excited, busy chatter.

There were many changes that the head teacher had implemented over the previous couple of years, but the most obvious and clear one was the introduction of 'loose parts', stuff to play with, junk. You can see what it looked like in this film showing the results of a pilot study of Scrapstore Playpods in 2009.