We had already started making big changes to our school play areas when project leads Rick and Chris approached us about being part of the Nottingham Games project (funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund from 2024-2026). For the previous three years, we had been leading Creativity Collaboratives, an Arts Council funded project intended to promote creativity in schools. Funding from this project had enabled us to work as a collaborative with local artists, creative practitioners and other teachers on initiatives we judged would have lasting impact on creative learning in our schools.
By the third and final year of the project, the national Arts Council leads were subtly, but fairly firmly, pushing us towards working on models to codify and measure creativity in the classroom. At Welbeck though, we were moving in a different direction. We were getting more and more interested in what we could do to promote creativity outside the classroom, at play times. So we were interested in the opportunity to be part of a project that positioned children as researchers of their own playgrounds.
Nottingham Games
Nottingham Games was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, so the emphasis was on children’s games as part of what UNESCO call the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ of places and people at particular times.. In a dozen primary schools across the city, teams of pupils applied for researcher roles and were trained in collecting data. The Welbeck team – like the others – took this role very seriously and recognised that they had expertise they could bring to bear. As Bethany, a pupil at Rufford Primary, so perceptively commented:
I think I’m better at researching than an adult because…I understand the games that the children have played and I’ve played them before.
Once all the children’s data had been collated and categories of games had been created, the question of how to report the findings arose. Chris and Rick wanted the findings to be easily accessible by children, to promote conversation and curiosity about games – how to play them, where they come from, how they are shared. So the report became a picture book, What We Play, beautifully illustrated by the brilliant local artist Carol Adlam. Free copies of the book are available for all Nottingham City primary schools and libraries. A flip book version of the book is here
What We Play includes a QR code to a short (3 minute) film – available here – and a directory of video clips of children explaining how to play the games. A second, longer (11 minute) film poses some of the questions we’re all currently grappling with: about the impact of technology on childhood and children’s play, about attitudes to risk and what is happening to childhood more broadly… Like the book, the films and the games directory, made by Georgi Scurfield, a talented local videographer, aim both to record and enrich the current conversation about games and creative play.
Alongside our involvement in the Nottingham Games project, we worked on developing our school’s play spaces. Like so many other schools, we were part of a wave of cultural change that has recently been transforming school playgrounds from the barren expanses of asphalt they’ve been for more than 150 years. OPAL play was an important influence, though we were not directly part of their programme. We analysed the spaces we had, developed our wild areas and green spaces, sought out materials from local builders’ merchants and DIY stores, invested in new play equipment, provided craft, loose parts and role play materials, as well as bikes and scooters, skipping ropes, table tennis and stilts. We rethought our attitudes to risk and discussed risk assessment with the children and lunchtime staff. Led by the children, in response to their engagement with the play and with their requests and ideas, we gradually became more inventive. We are already on our second or third refresh of the spaces – they’re evolving all the time.
What’s the impact on our school?
The development of creative play has had an immeasurable – and huge – impact. Children of all ages are playing together. Playtimes are more harmonious and more inclusive than they were before. Children freely choose what they want to play and how they want to express themselves. They are more likely to ask us to join in their games than to mediate disagreements. They organise games and teach them to one another. They share games from their home cultures. They practise leadership roles. They recognise that, as adults, we value their games and their expertise in playing them. Creativity seems to be flourishing in every corner of the playground (though we haven’t yet felt the need to measure it!)
In turn, this has had a significant impact on the whole school. Happy playtimes support attendance, engagement, inclusion, belonging and positive behaviours. It’s not magic, but in general the children come in from play time stimulated, smiling, curious and ready to continue learning.