Longworth Education

Longworth Education- Learning Through Play

I was lucky enough to attend a full day Longworth Education Course with my team. I had heard a lot about Longworth education courses and knew this was a course which would be worthwhile. I found the course provided a valuable pedagogical base and framework to support learning through play which has become a topic in Education that has a high profile in New Zealand. Up until now I have always been conscious of using the word “play “. Longworth education encourages us to be proud to use this word because play is so powerful in the learning and teaching of our children. Our children are not designed to sit up straight and learn in a formal setting and more and more this is becoming evident as we scrutinise the children appearing on our roll at school. Play is a platform in which so many vital skills are taught and practised including problem solving, creativity, communication and the development of vocabulary and oral language.


Longworth describe the philosophy which drives play based learning. Primarily play is self chosen and self directed. It is about the process, rather than the product. It contains structures or rules established by the players themselves. It is Imaginative, non literal and removed from reality and it occurs between those who are active, alert and non stressed. (Gray, 2013; Brewer, 2007). One interesting point that was made was that it is OK for children to have the freedom to “quit”. I find myself naturally encouraging children to see things to their completion and to keep on trying and not to quit. I hadn’t considered that children who quit have made a conscious decision to leave their game and not returning which will encourage them to think about and act upon alternatives. If they choose not to quit and to participate then they will need to be open to resolving conflict that arises and have to work it out for themselves.

It was very clear that imaginative and dramatic play are very important for the development of social and cognitive skills in children. When children are engaged in dramatic and creative play of their own choosing, they are operating at a high level of cognitive and social development. Dramatic play allows space for development of executive functioning skills, identified now as key skills for the modern adult world. (Longworth Education) Dramatic and imaginative play allows for creativity and equips children with the skills required to problem solve and communicate effectively.

Today I learnt that children naturally display certain urges or behaviours that they repeatedly display. It is important and useful for educators to sit back and observe these behaviours which are allowing children to explore their thoughts and imagination. Play gives preschoolers a chance to express their feelings and practise managing them and we can learn a lot about our children through observing these urges. Some of the urges include rotation, transportation, water, fire, ordering, construction, throwing etc. We, as educators should be observing these urges and allowing for them in our environments by providing a variety of opportunity to allow the children to explore them further.

On the topic of environments, let’s head back to Longworth and see what a played based learning environment is characterised by. The following slide sums it up perfectly.
http://www.longwortheducation.co.nz/
Some of the challenges that I am working through in the providing of  a play based environment include the importance of taking a step back from children. It is important to resist the urge as teachers that some of us naturally have to leap in and solve the children’s problems and disagreements. Longworth Education have strongly discouraged this and I struggle with this in my teaching. I see the benefit for sure, it is just hard to stop myself sometimes.

I wonder about the loose parts and how we are to go about managing this aspect of the learning through play proramme we are running. I have questions which include- where do we source these and how do we keep supplies topped up on a limited budget? I wonder how often we need to be changing up the equipment and I still wonder how much equipment we should have out at one time. I have become more tolerant of the mess that is “play” ( both at school and at home) but mess still bugs me.

I got a lot out of the course today and I believe my colleagues did too. It will impact my teaching and that is for sure. Thank you Longworth Education.