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Learning Environments

What is most children's experience of the school playground? How would it look if designed for their own creative play? What could be the impact on children's learning?

In 2004, the 7th PLAYLINK/Portsmouth City Council conference set out to challenge received ideas of what constitutes a good environment for learning and explore the common elements of play and learning environments.

The conference included discussions with a number of playworkers and teachers currently co-operating to improve children's experience of the playground and breaktime in schools.

Summaries and excerpts from Presentations to the conference are available here:

Play at School

Play at SchoolThe Play at School Scheme was established in 1993 in response to the growing number of enquiries PLAYLINK was receiving from primary schools which had decided that their playgrounds needed to be improved.

The Play At School Scheme was an attempt to change attitudes and values using a management consultancy style of engagement. In this it was an attempt to enhance the capacity of schools to address the ‘whole child’, the one that actually attends school. PLAYLINK’s Play at School Scheme aimed to assist schools turn ‘breaktime’ into ‘playtime’.

Play at School, a report on the project by Bernard Spiegal of PLAYLINK is available at: http://www.playlink.org.uk/publications/documents/pas.pdf.

Children in class

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