ABSTRACT
In this chapter we present an analysis of the current situation concerning young children and their opportunities to play with peers in England. The new curriculum for children from birth to five – the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (Department for Education and Skills 2007) contains a 54-page document of legal requirements for early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers, together with other practice guidance. Although this policy document purports to emphasize the role of play, further document analysis reveals continuing contradictory Government messages, which create tensions between policy and practice. England, like several other countries (for example, the United States and the Netherlands) remains gripped by the belief that ECEC should prepare children for primary school through early admission to settings with greater emphasis on formal, teacher-planned and directed learning. Opportunities to play with other children, to be agents in their own learning, forging and enjoying peer relationships – friendships – and to become confident and at ease in interactions with others, are thus endangered in ECEC settings, schools and the wider community. We explain that some early years teachers attempt to overcome these policy contradictions through creative compliance, while other highly skilled and committed colleagues adopt a relational pedagogy, which enables young children to play and learn as participants in a community of learners.
Perhaps as a response to reports (e.g. Hillman et al. 2000; Layard and Dunn 2009) highlighting the comparative unhappiness and increasingly limited freedom of England’s children, the Government in England published its first national Play Strategy, earmarking £235 million to:
