In March I facilitated a workshop at National Playwork Conference with 20 people, based on my chapter ‘ Three Reflective Tools for Playwork Practice’ in ‘Aspects of Playwork’.

In the workshop we spent some time appreciating the different kinds of knowledge Playworkers use to make decisions about if, when and how to intervene in play. The situated knowledge that Playworkers develop of the play space’s rhythms and rituals mean they can work with themes that come up in play in sensitive ways.

We talked about the importance of reflective practice in helping Playworkers to become more conscious of the knowledge they base their decisions on. This reflection is deeply important to check that our decisions are based on sensitive observations and not on our own baggage. However, time for reflective practice is limited and shrinking in our play settings.

We looked together at some ways to help build in more reflection through using the creative tools explored in the chapter; story telling, sound recording and mapping. We had some really interesting discussions exploring what we can learn about Playwork from the stories we tell, the sounds we record and the maps we make.

We looked at one of the stories from the chapter as an example. What can you understand from this story about children’s play, the role of Playworkers and what playwork spaces are like?

It was a cold and dark Autumn evening. We had a fire burning outside. There was a group of children in who knew each other well and went to the same school. They were playing a zombie hunting game where one of them was the zombie. They ran around the outside space and through the building. The boy who was the zombie stopped off to pick up items of fancy dress each time he passed through the building, creating a terrifying costume piece by piece. He had a big fur coat and a hat. He used face paints to paint blood on his face. He stayed in character the whole time. Some younger children came in and wanted to play but were scared of the zombie. The zombie let out the secret that he was scared of shiny things. We made sure those who were feeling scared had a shiny thing to protect them and sure enough the zombie ran away from them. It didn’t take long before one of the children found the ultimate weapon against the zombie; glitter. They picked up a pot, ran outside and threw some over him. The zombie ran into the building and picked up the other pot, ran to the fire and poured all of it into the flames, disposing of the weapon.

Thank you very much all who came along to this workshop. I hope you came away with ways to build in more reflection at your settings.

If you’d like more information or you would like a workshop for your team, please get in touch.