November 2016: Feeling proud….Dan Rees-Jones and Kirsty Wilson take a selfie outside the Boite a Jouer in Ecole Wurtz.
On a dark and stormy afternoon in 2013 Jean Marc and Emma
left France behind and flew into the Bristol mist at Children’s Scrapstore on a
fact finding mission….. They wanted to understand more about the process of introducing
loose part play into primary schools and wanted to spend a week observing
and questioning us to learn more about the idea of replicating Scrapstore
PlayPods back home.
on the way. Both Jean Marc and Emma
spoke good English but I wasn’t too sure how much they would get from this
observation…. I do tend to get a bit over excited when I’m training, jump
around a lot, and use a lot of anecdotes and stories to support concepts and theories, which may get lost in translation, I feared. On the way back I asked them how they found
it. Emma simply said:
“you speak very quickly”
Over the course of the week they
worked tirelessly with our team…. observing Scrapstore PlayPods in action,
training sessions in schools and asked a lot of questions about virtually
everything loose part related. Initially it felt strange to be “watched on the
job” for a week but as we waved them off on Friday we had grown accustomed to
it enjoying the process. We all wondered what would come of this trip and
whether we would see them ever again?“you speak very quickly”
We didn't have to wait long! Incredibly within 6 months Jean Marc and Emma had not only formed a association called Jouer Pour Vivre but had successfully crowd funded for a pilot of Boite a Jouer (aka PlayPods) in two primary schools, one in Die, Emma's home town and the other in Paris in a school called Virtruve. The videos below show a computer generated idea of a Boite a Jouer and different people from Vitruve discussing what impact the Boite a Jouer has had on their school.
A 3D representation of a Boite a Jouer
Evaluation of Boite a Jouer in
Vitruve
Both of these pilots were incredibly successful for the children’s play and learning elements about how this project may work within a French context. It provided a catalyst for a lot of interest from parents, practitioners and organisations alike all seeing the brilliant potential of loose parts play in schools. Jouer Pour Vivre were keen to explore this further and went on from here to draft a bid for an Erasmus+ project with a large organisation called La Ligue based in Paris and Encis based in Spain to pilot loose parts play in primary schools and after school clubs. We were thrilled when Jouer Pour Vivre asked Scrapstore Play Services to become the knowledge transfer partner and agreed eagerly. The bid was successful and after a slightly delayed start we all embarked on a two year Erasmus + Project introducing loose parts play into schools in France and Spain. As well as working in two countries, the project involved two research partners University 13 Experice and Ferria Guardia who intended to do a scientific synthesis of its implementation recording the changes in the way children played with the loose parts and responded to it.
The Erasmus + project officially started in February 2015 with all the project partners meeting at Bristol Children’s Scrapstore. It was incredible to consider how the idea and concept had progressed so far so quickly.
May 2015:
Erasmus Partners at First Transnational meeting at Children’s Scrapstore
Bristol
After our site visits we created a baseline report: Diagnosis of Play Settings
July 2015: Dan
Rees-Jones, Kirsty
Wilson & Debbie
Woods in Manresa, Spain visiting the Encis Office after a site visit to La
Lluna assessing play value.
October 2015: Dan
Rees-Jones delivering training on Risk Benefit Assessment within a public
park shortly before being properly ‘told off’ by The Guardian of the Park for introducing loose parts!
November 2016:
Feeling proud….Dan
Rees-Jones and Kirsty
Wilson take a selfie outside the Boite a Jouer in Ecole Wurtz.
I felt strangely proud at this moment on the playground….
the notion of a simple idea being
replicated so seamlessly in
another place and context. Even though I
couldn’t take credit for the work…. Just watching the chaotic joy and noise
that loose parts was bringing to this school was brilliant! The children loved
it and even the staff loved it! Valerie the lead animateur for came up to us and said.
“
We used to dread opening the
Boite a Jouer but now we dread
not opening it!”
It was fascinating and reassuring to see how the project had
so many similarities and successes to the English model. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank all the partners for their contributions and success
in delivering this exciting project and hope that these positive early steps
will set the foundations for more children to experience high quality play
opportunities in schools across Europe.
Well done all!
The final report looks at the findings from the synthesis
from both countries and makes for an interesting read: Findings Report
As the project came to a close Jouer Pour Vivre surprised
us yet again.. moving up a gear by winning a government contract to
deliver no less than ten Boites a Jouer in Paris over the next two years!
I’m not quite sure what the next few years will bring to
loose parts play in Europe….but if the last few are anything to go by its definitely
going places!