"Play is a learner's work"

(This blog post was originally published with a very misleading misspelling while the author was much the worse for illness. Thus it is being republished here in amended form.)

I loved that statement from my 1991 childcare training course with Toynbee Training toward a Pre-school Play Groups Association qualification that a jobcentre bureaucrat later sneered at. She wanted to push me around, not help me extend my learning through real volunteering and further training.

Play is especially great for those of us with learning difficulties, reducing the stress associated with exams oriented learning and Government and academisation's obsession with Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs). What kind of schools were the engineers of privatisation and cuts in public spending get sent to? What kind of schools were the engineers of right wing welfare reform sent to?

And perhaps more green space is needed to avert diseases such as cancer, rather than more laboratory research within central London?(1)

Policy for Play and a United Nations report say that more play facilities are required by society.(2) (3)

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Links

1. http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2010/sep/green-mp-slams-super-lab-plans-brill-place
2. https://policyforplay.com
3. https://policyforplay.com/2016/06/14/this-un-report-is-an-indictment-of-a-government-that-doesnt-care-but-also-an-opportunity-for-play-advocates/

UK's new SATs scores and the impacts of 'austerity measures'

The BBC reports Almost half of primary schools miss new SATs [Standardised Assessment Tests] standards.(1)

Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis is a retired head teacher who keeps up to date with classroom experience of teachers and learners. He reports on the new SATs scores as lived experience of teachers, learners and headteachers:

"On top of the stress children and teachers suffered in the Gradgrind weeks before the tests and the stress of the tests themselves which saw many children reduced to tears, I now hear of children feeling deeply distressed and despondent because they 'haven't reached the required level' — some have gone weeping to their headteachers seeking comfort...."(2)

I dread to think what added damage the SATs scores of Boundary House youngsters — whose stressful living conditions have been reported by Kate Belgrave — would be!(3)

Further, Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty has long argued that the low levels of UK social security payments are detrimental to nutrition and brain development. (4)

In the words of the Euripides play 'The Trojan Women' adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre: "Those who give the order seldom see the mess it makes." In line with 'Underclass Theory' they would probably blame the genetics of the victims rather than their policies of excessive stress and not nearly enough support.(5) 

If those who set the impossible 'targets' cannot change their world view, we certainly require a change of government!  

Link addresses

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36712029
2. http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/sats-plunge-is-not-childrens-or.html
3. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2016/07/the-future-will-be-wrecked-for-generations-while-women-and-little-kids-live-like-this/
4. https://welfaretales.wordpress.com/tag/paul-nicholson/ — no 'h' in the spelling of his name, but follow the link address all the same!
5. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/02/the-new-claiming-classes-its-t/