Was at a really interesting seminar in Glasgow this afternoon on the State of Children’s Play. I hope to write more about this later (or bore you all with it 😉 ) but it served only to reinforce my conviction that the play based ethos of a PLAYgroup is significantly beneficial to children. Children need self directed play experiences to allow their brains to develop. In a competitive society, however, where we rush to get children ready for school, we risk forcing education onto children before their brains have developed capacities such as reasoning and self-control. Without these basic skills teaching becomes much more difficult. The analogy of trying to build a house on sand comes to mind.