EYFS: the great play-based learning debate

Ofsted stepped into that spotlight with its recent report, Strong foundations in the first years of school, arguing that “poorly planned play keeps children busy but does not support their development” because “their hands and bodies are active, but their minds are not”.

Some in early years have worried that this is an attack on play-based learning, and not merely an observation that play in nursery and Reception classes can be low-quality.

That leads us to an interesting question: what do we know about the importance of play in early learning, and how can we evaluate its quality?

Play-based learning in early years

There is no serious dispute about the status of play in early years.

The statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage explains that effective practice is a mix of different approaches and “children learn through play, by adults modelling, by observing each other and through adult-guided learning”.

Furthermore, several of the early learning goals assess how children take part in play, as well as assessing more formal skills and knowledge. The Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) Early Years Toolkit estimates that play-based learning has a “positive impact (plus four months) on learning outcomes”.

However, when you scratch at the surface of the research evidence, it’s thinner than you might expect. The EEF caveats its findings in the toolkit with the comment that “the evidence base is very limited”.

Similarly, a recent research synthesis and meta-analysis by Kayleigh Skene and others into learning through guided play concludes that “the existing evidence is not of a quantity, quality, or consistency within any one outcome area to allow very confident conclusions to be drawn”.

It is important to note that the review has several positive findings. For example, it states that “there is some evidence that guided play interventions can support maths-based learning in the classroom”.

As well as facing an evidence challenge, early years teachers can find that play is undervalued and misunderstood by senior leaders in their schools.

Julie Fisher puts it well when she says that “play is a word that chills the hearts of some headteachers, and senior leaders, particularly those who have never taught young children in their careers”.

Going back to Ofsted’s review, is it legitimate to refer to “poorly planned play”, or is this just another example of a cold-hearted approach to early years?

I think there is a case to make on Ofsted’s behalf here. Where resources are not well-organised, for example, the quality of play can be poor.

In their classic paper Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, Edward Miller and Joan Almon describe the scenario of “ample play but without active adult support, often resulting in chaos”.

A more objective view

The opposite approach is also a problem: if we’re not careful, we can overdo the adult support and ruin children’s play through interference.

To help us take a more objective view of the quality of play in early years classrooms, there are several quality scales that have been widely used in Department for Education-funded research and are equally useful for the individual practitioner.

For example, the evidence-informed Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Wellbeing (SSTEW) scale clarifies which types of interactions support children’s learning well, and which are sub-optimal.

In an item called “encouraging choices and independent play”, the scale explains what inadequate practice looks like (the interests of the children are not taken into account) and what constitutes excellence (staff include children in planning for the setting).

Play is important to children’s development. It needs to be considered and planned for as carefully as any other aspect of the provision.

When it’s done badly in early years classrooms, it wastes children’s time; but when done well, it provides enrichment, joy, motivation and pleasure - just what children who were born during the Covid-19 pandemic need.

Julian Grenier CBE is the co-author of Putting the EYFS Curriculum into Practice