Welcome to Speke Adventure Playground
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Conleach Rd, Speke, Liverpool L24 0TR
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GUIDING DOCUMENTS
In developing our services the following strategies were influential in our thinking, strategic planning and delivery.
▷ EVERY CHILD MATTERS
Launched in 2013, this was a UK Government initiative for England and Wales. It is one of the most important policy initiative and development programmes in relation to children and children’s services of that decade, and led to the Children Act 2004. It protects all children and young adults up to the age of 19 (or 24 for those with disabilities), whatever their background or circumstances. Its introduction would aim to assist in reducing levels of educational failure, ill health, substance misuse, teenage pregnancy, abuse and neglect, crime and anti-social behaviour among children and young people.
Working in consultation it produced five target outcomes which mattered most to children and young people, which became the guiding strands of the initiative:
- Being Healthy: Enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle
- Staying Safe: Being protected from harm and neglect
- Enjoying and Achieving: Getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood
- Making a Positive Contribution: Being involved with the community and society and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour
- Economic Well-being: Not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life.
Since its inception we have kept these core principles close to our heart and use them to help guide the work and services we promote in the community.
▷ UNITED NATIONS
In 1989 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly and was ratified by the UK government in 1991. The convention places a responsibility on all governments to work for ‘their own’ and for the world’s children. Under Article 31 it confirms that all state parties recognise the right of the child to rest, to leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. The countries belonging to the United Nations, therefore recognise play as a right for all children and have a duty to protect and promote play opportunities. It then further outlines the following guiding principles:
- The right to a childhood
- The right to be educated
- The right to be healthy
- The right to be treated fairly
- The right to be heard
▷ PLAY ENGLAND
The Charter for Children’s Play sets out a vision for play. It aims to be a catalyst for individuals and organisation’s to examine and improve how they provide for children and young people’s play and informal recreation.
The Charter states:
- Children have the right to play
- Every child needs time and space to play
- Adults should let children play
- Children should be able to play freely in their local areas
- Children value and benefit from staffed play provision
- Children’s play is enriched by skilled playworkers
- Children need time and space to play at school
- Children sometimes need extra support to enjoy their right to play
▷ WHY PLAY
Children are highly motivated to play, although adults find defining and understanding children’s play a challenge. All aspects of development and learning are related in play, particularly the affective and cognitive domains. When children have time to play, their play grows in complexity and becomes more cognitively and socially demanding.
Through free play children:
- Explore materials and discover properties
- Use their knowledge of materials to play
- Imaginatively express their emotions and reveal inner feelings
- Come to terms with traumatic experiences
- Maintain emotional balance
- Physical and mental well-being
- Struggle with issues such as birth and death, good and evil and power and powerlessness
- Develop a sense of who they are, their value and that of others
- Learn social skills of sharing, turn-taking and negotiation
- Deal with conflict
- Learn to negotiate to solve problems
- Moving from support to independence
- Develop communication and language skills; and
- Repeat patterns that reflect their prevailing interests and concerns.
▷ PARTNER QUOTES
It is also recognised that children today have fewer opportunities for outdoor play than their predecessors.
- Free play in early childhood is a vital experience through which children learn social, conceptual and creative skills, as well as increasing their knowledge and understanding of the world around them.” Joan Santer and Carol Griffiths, Free Play in Early Childhood
- “It is important that children are ‘emotionally literate’ by being able to play, take risks,use their initiative, make friends and deal with conflict. Such play may reduce the risk of some children having mental health problems in later life” The Mental Health Foundation (1999)
- “Young children make up the most physically active group in society.” S, Hutt, (1989) Play, Exploration and Learning: A Natural History of the Preschool.
- “Children have a right to the highest level of health possible. A lack of spontaneous play opportunities has been cited as a causative factor in increased child obesity in England.” Article 24 of the United Nations Convention (on the Rights of the Child)
- “All Children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate, Play is biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development and well-being of individuals and communities” Play England: A World without Play
