Education Business

There are interesting times ahead for schools in England. Government policy has made it clear that schools are an important place for children’s play, both during the school day and in terms of making facilities available outside schools hours. In addition, Play England’s Charter for Children’s Play, a document that acts as a catalyst for organisations to examine, review and improve their provision for children’s play, states: “Children at school need time and space to play.”
    
The challenge for school leaders, planners and designers is to how best develop their existing play facilities and enrich the school day by including opportunities for learning through play, particularly in the primary curriculum. One London primary school has been well ahead of these current initiatives in terms of providing this time and space to play.

School on the move
St John Baptist Church of England Primary School, in Hoxton, serves a diverse community in area where social exclusion, poverty and language barriers are real issues. Almost five years ago when current head teacher, Louise Rosen, was appointed, the school had behaviour issues, its Ofsted inspection was disappointing, and for parents, it wasn’t a popular destination for their children.
    
Now the school, thanks to some innovative leadership, has a radically new ethos that has helped make learning exciting. It’s oversubscribed, seeing parents appealing to get their children a place; attendance levels are excellent with 98 to 100 per cent not being uncommon; and a 2008 Ofsted inspection report described St John Baptist as a ‘school on the move’.

Play deprivation
An audit of local places where children go to play by the Shoreditch Trust, which children at the school were involved in, revealed serious issues around gangs and street crime that was having a devastating impact on how and where local children went to play or meet friends. This was one of the factors that convinced Louise Rosen that play needed to feature strongly in plans for the school’s future direction.
    
“When children are experiencing play deprivation, what’s the point of a capital letter and a full stop,” said Rosen whilst holding a copy of the influential Play Wales’ publication ‘First Claim’.
    
Rosen explained that she sees connections between play and improving conditions for children, adding that ‘play is an important part of a good childhood and also important in raising standards within the school’. Informed by this understanding, and having dipped into some key play theory texts, including Bob Hughes’ ‘Evolutionary Playwork’, she set about changing the school.

Children having their say
The first task was to find out what the children actually wanted. Using a ‘magic pen’, children, parents and governors produced posters of their vision for the school; these mostly contained images of children playing and laughing – rather than doing maths or English classes. The consultation with children highlighted the need for change. The school had no green space or shade, children were not physically challenged, had no quality playtime, no climbing or swinging, and no sand nor water.
    
Since Rosen’s arrival, over £1m has been raised from outside the school’s delegated budget, providing the resources for an ambitious programme. Rosen was able to get everyone on board with the message that “anything was possible and they were going to build the most amazing school for children, staff and parents”.
    
With support from adventure playground specialists Design + Build [Play], work started on transforming the school playgrounds. Children were involved right from the start, by producing models of the structures and voting on what was going to be included.
    
The results speak for themselves. The boundary between classroom and playground for younger children at Key Stage 1 has been blurred. Classrooms extend into the playground, sheltered by a glass roofed canopy; a sensory garden with planting and a den has been added thanks to support from the Sunbabies Trust; and a play structure has been located within a huge sand pit to providing a safe landing zone and space for loose parts play.
    
Things really get going in the playground for Year 3 to 6 children. An impressive adventure playground structure, complete with aerial walkways, cargo nets and a Globe Theatre-inspired stage/meeting area provides the main focus. The school might also be the only one in the country to feature a zip wire.
    
With help from the environmental regeneration charity, Groundwork, the school recently installed ‘the hill’ – a gently sloping grass hill that now breaks up the former tarmac surface, whilst also providing outdoor amphitheatre style seating for the theatre stage.
    
Introducing natural features to the playground was also a priority. Each class is named after a tree, so careful thought has been put into locating real examples of these in the playgrounds. Flower-beds and vegetable plots are prominent features, with children encouraged to grow vegetables, which are then used by the school kitchen.
    
A strong emphasis on sustainability is noticeable; growing organic vegetables, composting, and even the theatre is powered by solar panels. Crucially, Rosen doesn’t see these features as ‘bolt-ons’, as all these elements find their way into the curriculum as some stage. This holistic view links the gardens, play areas, PE and sport, and music and art, to topic plans that make lessons exciting.
     
Initially some parents were concerned as to how the head teacher was spending school money. The Chair of Governors wrote to parents, explaining that the money came from additional grants or charities bid for by the head teacher. Some were also worried about children hurting themselves, this gave way to the majority who were overwhelmed, telling staff that children will not miss a day at school if it means they miss their turn on the play structure.

The future
St John Baptist provides extended services along with 12 other schools, as part of a local cluster. The school provides access to the core offer of extended services including breakfast and after school clubs. It operates a holiday scheme so the community could take advantage of its rich play environment.
    
There are issues about supervision, as these extended services are partly dependant on the local authority providing playwork support. To make sure this is not an issue, the school has recruited a play manger and is preparing to roll out training to staff and parents so they can gain an NVQ Level 3 in Playwork from this autumn. Rosen is keen to develop the school as a ‘learning institution’ and an example of good practice and that all staff extended their skills. To partly achieve this, funding has been secured from the Training and Development Agency (TDA) so that teaching staff can follow an MA programme on Play from this September.
    
There are more plans for the playgrounds too. Children have just completed a consultation on the design of a new roof top play space and are now looking for funding to turn their plans into reality.

Winning formula
Looking back at the school’s achievements, Rosen is confident that they have achieved what the children wanted, whilst also reinforcing the schools commitment to raising attainment by ensuring children become confident lifelong learners. At first, Rosen did question whether spending time and money on developing a creative and playful environment was the right approach, but firmly believes that this support has helped improve attainment: ‘good quality play leads to greater plasticity of the brain, which enables us to access and problem solve the new and as yet undiscovered’.
    
This was a bold move: some schools faced with a similar situation, and under close scrutiny to boost SATS scores, might have placed a far greater emphasis on bolstering academic achievement at the expense of those fun art, crafts, music and play-based activities that have proved so successful here. Rosen is clear that none of this could have taken place without good teamwork. Important here has been the commitment and positive attitude of the school premises officer, whose daily tasks now include sweeping sand and watering plants; he even comes in at weekends and during holidays to help the children take care for their playground.
    
The children like this new approach too. I asked two Year 6 pupils for their opinions on the school. Dorothy, age 10 and Chris, age 11, both remember the old playground describing it as ‘boring’, and a place they didn’t like because ‘there was nothing to do’. Now they describe the playground as ‘exciting’, they both like coming to school and Dorothy has plans for decorating the structure to make it more ‘eye catching’. Chris added: “We can paint it – not them [adults], whatever colour we like, we can choose some people who are sensible, we will have turns, every class can have their turn.”
    
It seems like some of Rosen’s original enthusiasm for ‘building an amazing school’ has rubbed off, with the children having a genuine sense of pride, ownership, and confidence that they can help shape the school.