Play in the Early Years: Learning for Life

The arena of early years practice has, over the past decade, been pitched into a situation where we seem to constantly swim against a relentless tide of inappropriate policy ‘initiatives’. This situation appears to have developed because those charged with policy development are not developmental specialists. They have learned the lessons of the impact of early environments upon neuronal development, but appear to think that the way to respond to this is a fast pace of adult-directed activity at the earliest possible age. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no evidence to support the ‘earlier is better’ approach. In fact, research in the fields of anthropology, neuroscience, psychology and education tells us that play-based learning is more effective in developing the core skills upon which later academic achievements are based