Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom. Imagining fairy-tale turrets and fire-breathing dragons, wicked witches and gallant heroes, she’s creating an enchanting world. Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity and so it will have important repercussions in her adult life.

Minutes later, Alice has abandoned the kingdom in favour of playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence. Later on, when they tire of this and settle down with a board game, she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner.

‘Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species,’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.’

Recognizing the importance of play is not new: over two millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled its virtues as a means of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning have been developing since the 19th century.

But we live in changing times, and Whitebread is mindful of a worldwide decline in play, pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce,’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime, and by the emphasis on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools.

International bodies like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play, and to consider implications for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated, spontaneous and unpredictable – but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened,’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact of play is. It’s a real challenge.’

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on its impact on the child’s later life.

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.

‘A strong possibility is that play supports the early development of children’s self-control,’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking progresses – it influences how effectively we go about undertaking challenging activities.’

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up requiring scientific reasoning. ‘This sort of evidence makes up think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers in the long run.’

If playful experiences do facilitate this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance.

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behavior is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus was far more effective than an instructional one.’

Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego*, with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.’

Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater, untroubled by any serious intellectual debate or controversy.’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.

‘Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It’s regarded as something trivial, or even as something negative that contrasts with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences.’

brick by brick= steadily in a step-by step manner,
the creation or destruction of smt.
fairy-tale= enchanted, magical, fabulous
turret= a small tower on a large building, especially
a castle.
fire-breathing = able to produce a stream of fire
from the mouth
wicked= evil, unkind, sadistic, cruel, #good
gallant= kind, polite, respectful, gracious, #rude,
#cowardly
enchanting= attractive, pleasant delightful,
interesting, compelling
take the first step= begin, start new things
repercussion= consequence, effect, impact,
outcome (cuss= shake i.e discussion, concussion)

abandon =, leave behind, give up, walk out on #stay with.

in favour of= preferring to choose someone or something that you believe is better

boss someone around= give orders, order around, command, bully #obey

pretence= pretense, make-believe, imagination, #reality

settle down= to relax, doing a quiet activitiy

take turn (take it in turns) = alternate

underpin= support, reinforce, strengthen, #weaken

intellectual= philosopher, thinker, scholar (lect= read i.e prelect, lecture)

adaptable= adjustable, easygoing, flexible, #inflexible

millennia (plural) - millennium (singular)= 1000 years (millen= thousand each i.e millionaire, millenary)

extol= praise, admire, exalt, #deprecate

virtue= goodness, integrity, morality, #wickedness (vir= man i.e virtual, virtuality)

mindful of= aware, attentive #unaware #inattentive

point out= indicate, show, reveal, #hide

scarce= rare, uncommon, limited, in short supply, #plentiful, #abundant

curtail= restrain, limit, restrict, reduce

perception= insight, view, opinion (per=thoroughly i.e perfection, persistence)

emphasis= stress, importance, highlighting

implication= effect, inference, association, knock-on effect (plic= fold i.e complicate, application)

leisure= free time, entertainment, relaxation

facilities= buildings, services, equipment, etc. that are provided for a particular purpose (fac=do, make i.e factory, facilitate)

child-initiated play= play in which children choose what and how to play and who to play with

spontaneous= unplanned, natural, impulsive, #planned

intervene= interrupt, get involved become involved in a situation in order to improve or help it (ven= come i.e invent, advent)

puzzle= mystery, enigma, riddle, #explanation

possibility= option, probability, likelihood, prospect

self-control= self-discipline, willpower, ability to remain calm and not show your emotions even though you are feeling angry, excited, etc.

undertake= carry out, embark on, take on, #relinquish

toddler= baby, a child who has only recently learnt to walk

pre-schooler= a child who does not yet go to school, or who goes to preschool

set-up= arrangement, system, situation, circumstance

problem-solver= those who are good at finding ways of dealing with problems(solv=loosen, set free i.e dissolve, solution)

playful= lively, frisky, full of fun, full of life, #subdued

facilitate= enable, aid, help, assist, smooth the progress of, #impede (fac=do, make i.e factory, facility)

self-regulate= self-control, self-discipline, self-will (regul=rule i.e regular, regulation)

predictor= something that can show what will happen in the future (dic/dict= proclaim, say i.e dictation, verdict)

indicator= pointer, display, sign (dic/dict= proclaim, say i.e dictation, verdict)

investigate= examine, explore, inspect, check.(vestig= track i.e vestigial)

observe= watch, view, monitor, study, #ignore(serv= save, protect i.e conserve, reserve)

well-being= comfort, happiness, welfare

diagnosis= analysis, discover or identify the exact cause of an illness or a problem (gno= know i.e telegnosis, agnosia)

neurodevelopmental disorders = a group of disorders in which the development of the central nervous system is disturbed (neur= nerve i.e neurologic, neural)

autism= a mental condition in which a person finds it very difficult to communicate or form relationships with others (aut=self i.e automatic, authentic)

approach= method, tactic, methodology

stimulus= incentive, motivation, incitement, encouragement (stimul= rouse i.e stimulate)

backwater= remote place, the middle of nowhere, backwoods, sticks

untroubled= peaceful, calm, tranquil, undisturbed #bothered #troubled

debate= argument, discuss, dispute

controversy= disagreement, discussion, debate, #agreement (vers=turn i.e convert, adverse)

landscape= environment, situation, background

hotly= fiercely, angrily, strongly, passionately, #dispassionately

trivial=minor, unimportant, insignificant, #crucial

contrasts= differ, conflict, be different from something (contra= against i.e contraception, contradict)

fundamental= basic, essential, central, important

(fund = bottom i.e foundation, profound)