Now I have always loved a tricky challenge so I jumped at
the opportunity to apply for the job PlayPods for Primary Schools Project
Manager which seemed right up my street and a perfect move for me back in
2007.
Ten years later on and still in the same job…. I find myself
sitting in an airport reflecting on the exciting times we’ve had along the way,
the challenges we’ve faced as well as the legacy of loose parts play in schools
the past ten years has created.
The initial action research project brief was to;
Investigate the benefits of improving outdoor play environments in primary
schools for the purpose of supporting children’s development, learning and play
experiences. Two things bothered me about this:
Firstly how were we going to get schools in a position to
sustain loose
parts play on a daily basis? And what was going to make this project
different to all the other playground improvements?
The project comprised of three 12 weeks phases: Firstly
researching and baselining the play behaviours, then installing a PlayPod to be
open at lunchtimes and then finally the removal of it and assessing the post
play behaviours. An evaluation
report is available detailing the results.
I needn’t have worried though.... During the research, every
time we opened a PlayPod the children absolutely loved it, accidents went down
significantly, lunchtime staff were significantly more playful and everyone
involved couldn’t help but smile at the spectacle that the loose parts
created! I will never forget the day in one school playground where
we had recently removed the PlayPod a child came up to me in floods of tears,
clearly quite distressed and just about managed to say……
“Someone’s Stolen our PlayPod!”
Although this was quite heart wrenching to deal with I would
like to reassure the reader we that we didn’t leave a trail of unhappy children
in our wake. All but one of the schools involved in the project
reinstated their PlayPods once the research period was finished as they
couldn’t go back to how it was before.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though back in the early days though
…. The logistics of installing and removing shipping containers in and out of
school playgrounds with a crane had its ups and downs as you can imagine.
Indeed I can vividly remember a freezing cold day in December in 2007 where
somewhere on Avonmouth Industrial Estate, dressed slightly inappropriately I
had to wash three shipping containers with a colleague, inside and out using
only cold water. By the end of the day, we had not even finished cleaning
the outside of one container…. We were freezing cold and ever so slightly
broken by the experience….. On a positive note though the colleague I was
working with, ended up being my best woman at my wedding four years later!
A year into the project, I was sitting in the office one
morning reflecting; everything was ticking along nicely, the research was
underway and the early results indicated the loose parts was having a huge
impact on the quality of the play experiences for the children in the pilot
schools…. Then the phone rang. It was a head teacher I knew from a local school and he
wanted to buy a PlayPod. I politely refused saying this was a research project
and we weren’t in a position in any way shape or form to start selling them. He
said:
“Kirsty if you don’t sell us one then we are going to it by
ourselves, but it won’t be as good, so please come and help us!” Marcus
John 2008
How could I refuse?? This was the moment I knew that this
project was going to something else, something bigger than the proposed
research and a real confidence booster for me at this point.
The results of this project and “random sale” were
extraordinary and exceeded expectations in several ways, transforming the play
at lunchtimes. Common observations included a huge reduction in accidents and
incidents, evidence of children self-managing risks, and children working
together and collaborating across ages and genders, to mention a few. The
findings can be seen in this short video:
One of the pilot schools ‘Severn Beach’ were initially
reluctant to the change the Scrapstore PlayPod was going to bring but the
responses from the staff, children and community has been phenomenal.
“I thought it would be really hard to sell this scheme to
the staff but they absolutely love it” Jackie Daffon 2007
Ten years on the lunchtime staff and children still absolutely love their PlayPod and use it every day without fail. The lunchtime staff take the scrap home to wash and dry it, they even sewed the ears and other body parts back on cuddly toys. The school has also developed the playground by building special platforms that accommodate and extend building with loose parts and in the summer holidays children have been observed in their front gardens playing with their own loose parts!
In 2009 at the end of the research, the schools were so
happy with the results they couldn’t help but let other schools know about it
and suddenly a lot of schools were phoning us to ask how much a PlayPod was and
if they could buy one! The demand was such that a twelve month business plan was
put together so that the other local schools could benefits from this
too. Scrapstore PlayPods was born: A process
that works with the entire school community to change both the human and
physical play environments; transforming play at lunchtimes. The
transition from research to service and product delivery was a gradual and
tentative one, but ever since this date the loose parts still never fail to
create delight and enjoyment for the children who play with them.
Although we mainly operate within the UK, we have supported
and shared skills with different organisations introducing loose parts play
into schools in Australia and North Carolina. In May this year we also became a
key partner on an Erasmus + Knowledge Transfer Partnership piloting Scrapstore
PlayPods in France and Spain.
In May this year we went to visit the Boite a Jouer aka
PlayPod in Ecole Wurtz, a primary school for 250 children in Paris twice after
opened.
Even though I have been opening PlayPods for the last seven
years I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but on arrival to the playground, I
may as well have been in the UK ….it looked like a PlayPod, sounded like a
PlayPod and even smelled like PlayPod!
I felt strangely proud at this moment …. the notion of a
simple idea being replicated so seamlessly in another place and
context. 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
which really sealed the deal:
“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. Indeed Jouer Pour Vivre have won a government contract to deliver no less than ten Boites a Jouer in Paris over the next two years!
May 2016: Feeling proud….Dan
Rees-Jones and Kirsty
Wilson take a selfie outside the
Boite a Jouer in Ecole Wurtz.
From modest beginnings Scrapstore PlayPods has grown bigger
than anyone expected and is having a major impact on children and schools
across the whole of the UK and beyond! Since 2007 we have now worked with
over 307 primary schools and early years settings ranging from Cornwall to the
Orkney Islands, installing Scrapstore PlayPods, enabling 73,536 children access
to loose parts play and quality playtime experiences. I’m not quite sure what
the next few years will bring to loose parts play ….but if the last few are
anything to go by its definitely going places! I board the aeroplane
feeling excited…..
If you are interested in finding out more about Scrapstore
PlayPods please contact Scrapstore
Play Services or phone 0117 914 3002
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