A child playing with a loop part of Snug

Meeting the Learning Goals

15 September 2009

September 2008 saw the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) by the Department of Children, Schools and Families.

This play based framework will ensure all under fives in childcare benefit from a safe, secure and happy environment where they can play and develop. The EYFS is part of the Government’s wider scheme, laid out in the Children’s Plan and Every Child Matters, to give all children the best possible start in life.

At the heart of the EYFS is the principle that young children need to play in order to have fun, make friends and begin to learn about the world around them. Whaddon Children’s Centre, located in the Whaddon district of Cheltenham, provides an EYFS service to families and approximately 1,000 children within the local community.

The centre is adjacent to Whaddon Primary School and caters for three different groups. The ‘Family Support’ group encourages local families to use the community resource as an opportunity to get involved with their child’s development. The ‘Two Year’ group allows children to form positive relationships with adults and peers.

The ‘Nursery’ group caters for children aged three to four years and ensures they receive safe, enjoyable and stimulating childcare that prepares them for the best possible start in primary school. EYFS covers the quality of the environment that children are in and recommends that there should be some access to outdoor space. Back in 2007, Whaddon Children’s Centre had already recognised the importance of outdoor play.

Whaddon is situated in an area with high unemployment and low qualification levels, both factors which have been shown to contribute to lower sport and physical activity participation levels. To encourage play and physical activity outside, they invested in a wide range of play facilities including natural and sensory, playground markings and wooden climbing trees. They knew that they wanted play equipment that would be flexible for their needs and were insistent that they did not want fixed equipment.

So core to the upgrade of their outdoor space was the purchase of Snug. Snug is a revolutionary concept in loose parts play, designed to transform play areas into dynamic and creative playscapes, inspiring children to explore, create, discover and learn. The colourful kit, comprising nine, large scale, inter-related, colourful, flexible shapes can be reconfigured by children to vary their surroundings.

Snug is the result of a fifteen year process of research and evaluation into the way children behave, react and play in specific environments by playground artists Snug & Outdoor, a Sutcliffe Play partner. It changes the established patterns of behaviour by engaging children’s imaginations and giving them the satisfaction of being able to change their own surroundings. It allows children to develop new ways of playing, encourages creativity, social interaction and cooperation.

The Youth Sport Trust was involved right from the outset in Whaddon’s purchase of Snug and commissioned an independent research study to evaluate the impact of the new outdoor play space. Staff comments at the time were that “physical activity levels, creative, social and communication skills were already improving….. as they (the children) sought to invent games and help each other move some of the pieces of Snug equipment.

An early years leader identified “They are quite inventive with it and they do things with it I wouldn’t even have thought of, it’s what children are able to do.” Almost 2 years on, Senior Practitioner, Karen Mcsorley now comments: “Snug supports the EYFS framework and is used at Whaddon Children’s Centre to meet many of the 69 learning goals. Snug is used for physical play and the children also use it for imaginary play.

The children really like the smaller parts because they can move them around easily, and because Snug is flexible, we can bring the parts into different areas of the centre. This means different groups can use Snug at different times, making it a resource that is shared by all.” For further details on Snug visit www.snugplay.co.uk