Loose Parts Playground Launch

This week sees the launch of our ‘loose parts playground’! I’ve been working on a re-vamp of our outdoor spaces with a focus on re-directing the way we play and learn in them. One initiative I have been keen to bring in is the concept of providing children with outdoor play items which will provoke creativity, new ways of using the body, teamwork and communication. These items will supplement the existing fixed-to-the-ground playground equipment pieces and will consist of collections of random items which children can use to build structures of their own choosing. Logs, planks of wood, tree branches, tyres and fabrics are just some of the things we are including in our loose parts playground.

Imagining certain boisterous or clumsy children let loose with rough-cut planks of wood and pointy branches may fill some with horror but the concept behind this is that children learn to negotiate risk and command greater control over their spatial awareness plus gain greater understanding of how weight distribution and balance etc. work in a real-life context. As societies have become more risk-aware they have also become perhaps too risk-averse and children are given fewer and fewer opportunities to figure things out on their own and play with items which are not ‘toys’. Many children have an innate need to work with big items - lifting, carrying and pushing - but get very little chance to do so. Quite often, these are the children who ‘act out’ in class or can be quite physically rough with peers, perhaps because this is an area of need not met.

The open-ended nature of these play materials means that children will see limitless creative possibility in the items. I’m sure we will soon see a variety of structures created - dens, bridges, ships and shops - and I look forward to seeing how children play together in different groupings and how they sort out the inevitable issues which will arise. Solving the problems, both creative and interpersonal gives an opportunity to develop leadership and looking after the items will encourage stewardship and responsibility.

After brainstorming potential problems that could arise from the loose parts playground, the student council members presented the potential issues in assembly, enacting some possible scenarios in still photographs and suggesting ways of solving the issue. More ideas came from students and teachers and we all came to a common understanding of how to play in the space.