The annual conference of the National Association of Educational Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants Early Childhood Education Group, held last weekend at Brockenhurst in Hampshire, was addressed by academics, consultants and leading practitioners in the field.
Conference organiser Carolyn Poulter, senior advising officer for early education in Hampshire, said, 'The conference confirmed everybody's view that time and space for play must be found in the curriculum so that it can reinforce the Early Learning Goals.'
Elizabeth Wood, reader in early childhood education at Exeter University, told the conference that schools should consider developing a strategy for teaching and learning through play and appointing a play co-ordinator to ensure that ethos was developed across the school.
She said a continuum had to be maintained between child-initiated and adult-directed activities, play and work, children's and adults' intentions and children's meanings and adults' interpretations. Teaching strategies could include modelling, demonstrating, thinking aloud, observing, guiding, taking on or suggesting roles, and being playful.
Janet Moyles, director of research at Anglia Polytechnic University, said that learning was above all about communication and understanding. She said, 'When they're not actually eating and sleeping, children are creating knowledge. They are observing, thinking, theorising, specu- lating, testing and experimenting all the time and they are much better at it than we are.'
Other speakers included Jean Ensing, president of the British Association for Early Childhood Education, Paul Bonel, playwork development manager at SPRITO, and Nigel Hall, professor of literacy education at Manchester Metropolitan University.