ABSTRACT
The Start Right document on nursery education (Ball 1994) laid down that ‘play is the serious work of childhood’. In a time when play is regarded as any pre-prepared activity used as a learning tool to predetermine an outcome (the ‘learn as you play’ model), Steiner education takes the view that this deprives the child of the freshness and nourishment of freely chosen, open-ended play, that really creative play is unpredictable and has endless outcomes.
