Can I Go and Play Now?: Rethinking the Early Years

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This is a lovely book that really helps practitioners understand and value the importance of play and it's place in education. It’s why I created the concept of co-play – the Golden Blend of direct teaching (where we deliver specific skills) and then play where children explore and share their understanding as an open-ended experience with us as co-adventurers too. Greg is an advocate for next steps planning as this closely follows what the children want to learn about and discover. The author explores how he ensures that, in his Early Years setting, continuous provision enables children.

The world of education is an amazing and rewarding world to be in, but there is a sense among many that work within it that there is something not quite right, that all is not well. Greg Bottrill's revolution to put play at the heart of Early Years is voiced with such eloquence and good humour in his book. These show just how wide-ranging and practical the book is - and always the child is at the heart of everything. Children only have a childhood once and I believe that not only is it the chrysalis of identity itself, it holds all the things that can truly connect children to their educational experiences.It's all in the little details, the language we use, our interactions with children and the joy we ignite when asking simple questions. If you value childhood then you will see its magic – you will give children choice and autonomy within their day, you’ll enable the solidarity of play, you’ll give learning as a gift not a means to tick off a curriculum.

It was this that I was determined to take into education with me – choice, independence, curiosity, collaboration and kindness. and ‘School and the Magic of Children’ explore how education can be an adventure with children rather than something done to them. Right away I could tell that Greg makes clear sense in what he's saying in that what our youngest children need is the "best version of you" and your understanding that they are children and will create noise, mess, chaos and fun! Plus he suggests essentially uplevelling the role label of TA to meet on the level of the teacher’s role label. I will definitely be taking lots of ideas from this book and School and the Magic of Children into practise when we get back in September.

Cracks in the walls, secret tunnels, mythical creatures, heroes and villains, hidey holes and the Land Of Far Away are where Adventure Island come to life.