As a practitioner, we need to acknowledge how important play and leisure activities can be one of the cruel factor of a child’s development; Throughout my experience I have witnessed play to be extremely important to children’s and young people’s wellbeing and development. Play and leisure are essential for physical development, emotional as well as for intellectual, educational development and achieving academically.
Children through play and leisure, children and young people explore their physical and social environment, test out ideas and concepts.
The Playwork Principles (2006) state “All children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate”.
“Current theories about inclusive play revolve around the idea that play is important for life and that all play workers should be committed to creating play environments that are inclusive and that offer multi-sensory experiences for all children. Play environments should ensure children and young people can become involved in imaginary play and can help develop motor activity. They should also allow interaction in a safe environment. Play is seen as the language that can bring children of all different abilities together. All children and young people have the same basic needs and go through the same development stages, even though they may not all go through them at the same pace: some go through some stages more quickly than most, while others may become static in their development for a while. None of this should prevent access to any setting. Through play with other children they develop social skills and learn about behaviour, communication and friendship. Play is the tool for practical learning
1.2 Analyse the difference between sequence of development and rate of development and why the distinction is important. Sequence of development refers to the standard sequence or common pattern in which children learn different skills, and the rate of development refers to the speed in which a child will develop. As an early years practitioner it becomes very important for us to be aware about the rate of development as it is unique for each child. Individualized planning and early intervention becomes possible for the practitioners with clear knowledge of the same.
The practitioner in an early years setting supporting children’s play learning and development is extremely important, as play helps stimulate the child’s brain, supports their needs on an educational level, as well as helping them with social difficulties such as building relationships, developing them and helping them gain confidence. Many people believe that a child learns best when they are motivated, such as Fredrich Froebel. He believed that children benefitted from all types of play. The McMillan sisters believed that outdoor play was extra important as they studied children who played and slept outside and discovered that they were the happier and healthier children in comparison to those who only played inside.
2Class Work Sheet (12.12.11) Unit 3.2 Promote child and young persons development 3.2 A5: Supporting positive
When feeling tired, haven’t we all found it hard to concentrate on someone speaking sometimes? It’s normal to have occasional difficulties listening, following conversation or choosing the right words - especially when we’re exhausted. However, if it happens all the time, it may be because of a condition called Language Processing Disorder.
“Play is the highest expression of human development, for it alone is the expression of what is in a child’s soul.” Friedrich Froebel
In addition to play promoting pleasure as well as physical activity, play forms the holistic growth in children’s development, or to put it in another way using Brown (2003) acronym, acknowledged as ‘SPICE’; play represents the ‘social interaction’; ‘physical activity’; ‘intellectual stimulation’; creative achievement and emotional stability, (with the addition of “compound flexibility”) in a child’s development. Compound flexibility is the idea that a child’s psychological development occurs using the relationship between his/her environment with the adaptability of the child himself. Thus the flexibility of surroundings and his/her adaptableness can provide children the means to explore; experiment and investigate (Brown, 2003, pp. 53-4). On the contrary, the absence of social interaction and physical activity through the means of play can inhibit children’s overall development and without the consistency of play children suffer a “chronic lack of sensory interaction with the world, [which leads to] a form of sensory deprivation” (Hughes, 2001, p.217 in Lester and Maudsley 2006).
Both Play and Leisure are vital components of a child's life as a range of stimulating play and leisure opportunities will support the physical emotional sensory and spiritual and intellectual growth of the child. It helps them to form and sustain relationships and also improves communication, educational development and achievement.
It is significant and beneficial to allow children to play as they learn and develop by doing it. The reason for this is because play covers many areas. These areas can be natural, imaginative and motivating contexts for a child to learn about others, their surroundings and themselves. A moment of play can have a positive impact on many areas
According to (Penny Tassoni by ‘Practical EYFS Handbook’), play helps children develop self-confidence, a sense of themselves as individuals, lets them make their own choices.
It’s important for children to have opportunities to play because play supports children’s learning; through play children practise new ideas and skills, take risks, show imagination and solve problems (Early Years Matters, 2015),
Modern-day, stresses and nerves – and, it ought to be said, an open-air world which truly is less youngster amicable than ever before – has prompted a hazard opposed a culture that discovers expression in oppressive well-being and security arrangements which neglect to measure the advantages of a given movement against the dangers included. Suppliers of kids' play areas, in a similar manner as numerous open administrations, are in dread in case of even minor scratches. So they progressively blunder in favour of alert, putting intensely in effect retaining surfaces and gear that thoroughly meets well-being gauges yet regularly needs genuine play value.Free and unstructured play in the outside lifts critical thinking abilities, centre and self-restraint. Socially, it enhances participation, adaptability, and mindfulness. Enthusiastic advantages incorporate diminished animosity and expanded happiness.Children will be more quick-witted, better ready to coexist with others, more beneficial and more joyful when they have normal open doors for nothing and unstructured play in the out-of-entryways. In a current study a third of kids believed that there was a leaf that can soothe a nettle sting; as per the review, more than seventy-percent of the youngsters that participated in the research have never climbed a tree. Abominable! Ask anybody more than forty to relate to you their most loved recollections of adolescence play, and few will be inside. Less still will include a grown-up.
Santrock (2012) also outlines the benefit of play for the child's physical development, as it "permits the child to work off excess physical energy and to release pent-up tensions" (Santrock, 2012, p.438), resulting in improved physical and mental health. Garvey (1991, p.27) states that play involving physical activity occurs more frequently in healthy children, possibly confirming that it is a component of healthy development. In addition to this, encouraging physical activity through play could influence the children to maintain a healthy lifestyle later in life, and has an array of physical and mental health benefits which prevent disease associated with lack of activity (Chaloux and Media, 2013.)