Early learning and childcare quality indicators: Play and learning

'Very good' children’s engagement

Children are successful, responsible and confident in their play as a result of high-quality experiences we offer. They are highly motivated and fully engaged by the range of rich, challenging, planned and spontaneous experiences both indoors and outdoors.

Well-considered innovations and creative approaches successfully engage children’s imagination and enrich their play and learning. Their skills in language, literacy and numeracy are enhanced through play and learning experiences.

We work effectively with families to support their understanding of the benefits to children of play and learning experiences which challenge and delight them. This collaborative approach fosters the development of trust and cooperation, which supports children’s wellbeing and development and gives them opportunities to flourish.

Children make informed choices about leading their play and learning within an enabling, challenging and creative environment. They have time, space and support to make decisions and develop their learning, creativity, resilience and independence.

Children's interests are extended and sustained through the use of high-quality interactions, experiences and spaces. This includes developing strong connections to their own and wider communities.

'Weak' children’s engagement

Children have limited opportunities to lead their play and learning or to influence the range of spaces and experiences available to them. The play and learning environment lacks inspiration.

There is little to challenge or ignite children’s imagination and curiosity, or to encourage them to explore their ideas.

Children’s individual development needs and their interests are not reflected within the interactions, experiences and spaces. As a result, children are not engaged. They miss opportunities to learn, build confidence and make choices. Children therefore lack interest and motivation and may experience boredom, distress or frustration.

Children have few opportunities to access their own or wider communities. This limits access to a wide range of resources and experiences to enhance their play and development opportunities.

'Very good' quality of interactions

We have a very good understanding of how children learn and progress. Our staff make use of relevant theory and practice, and skilfully use this to support high quality play and learning experiences. We support the emotional resilience of children through holistic and nurturing approaches to secure children’s wellbeing, including the right to play.

Careful observation allows us to interpret children’s interests and provide opportunities to extend their thinking without directing their play. We use a variety of approaches to respond to children’s cues to support development of self-regulation, empathy, confidence, creativity and curiosity.

Responsive and caring interactions support the development of communication, language, movement and social development through effective modelling of these skills. We support children using concepts such as sustained shared thinking, wondering aloud and by engaging in meaningful conversations. We understand that interacting and exploring with children is a valuable way to build vocabulary and foster understanding, and a sense of wonder and excitement about the world. We enable next steps and give praise for trying things out.

Our children have frequent, appropriate opportunities to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills through imaginative play and storytelling. This helps children to extend their own thinking, practice new skills and consolidate their learning in ways which are meaningful to them.

We enable children to play and learn at their own pace, having fun as they explore the world around them. We understand when to engage and when to stand back and observe. We encourage children’s interactions with each other and take account of interactions that take place through actions, including verbal and non-verbal communications. This enables children to make the most of interactions, experiences and the physical environment for their learning and development.

'Weak' quality of interactions

Our staff do not demonstrate an understanding of how children learn and develop, or the support strategies which best enable children to learn as they play. Interactions and conversations with children lack warmth or are directive, and do not build on their emotional security or interests.

We do not recognise children’s emergent communication and language cues or do not support their preferred ways of communicating. This results in missed opportunities for children to make progress at their own pace and can mean children become passive, distressed or frustrated in their learning.

Our staff are not child-focused in interactions and fail to recognise and value children’s thoughts, interests and processes during play. Observations of children’s play do not facilitate the identification of next steps to support the child’s interests, support needs or developmental needs.

We may be focused on only one or two elements of children’s learning and not reflect a true, holistic picture of where each child is in terms of social, emotional, physical or cognitive development. As a result, children are not supported to extend their play and learning and the need for support, reassurance or intervention may be missed.

'Very good' child-centred planning and assessment

Children are at the centre of all planning for play and learning. We are skilled in recognising the different stages in children’s play and learning. We use observations of individual children’s patterns of play to plan, support, challenge and extend their learning. This enables children to make progress at their own pace.

Children are highly motivated and fully engaged by the range of rich, challenging play and learning opportunities, offered through a balance of intentional and spontaneous planning. Experiences reflect children’s ideas, aspirations, curiosities and meaningful next steps in their learning.

Careful observations and effective assessments recognise and promote children’s progress and achievements. Any additional supports are identified, planned for and implemented. Our highly responsive approach ensures children are developing a broad range of knowledge, understanding and skills for life and learning.

We work together with children, families and partners to inform experiences and to support children to enjoy their successes and share their achievements in play and learning.

'Weak' child-centred planning and assessment

Opportunities to observe and assess children in their everyday play are missed, leading to gaps in understanding around their interests and overall development.

We either do not have, or do not use, information needed to effectively respond and plan to meet children’s individual needs and interests, including additional supports where required. As a result, some children are not experiencing appropriate opportunities to support and consolidate their own learning through play and are not sufficiently challenged at an appropriate level.

There are limited or inconsistent approaches in place to evaluate children’s progress and achievements, or to use this information to plan for next steps in learning. Information gathered is not individualised or used effectively to plan the spaces, experiences and interactions each child needs to thrive.

Observations are irregular and do not link to individual children’s interests or their stages of play and learning. This results in a lack of understanding of progress over time.

Families are not involved or given high-quality information on their children’s learning, which results in a lack of consistency and continuity.

The following challenge questions can support your self-evaluation:

• How well do we support and encourage children’s natural curiosity, creativity and problem solving?
• What approaches are we using to promote children’s developing skills over a broad range of areas, such as emotional and social development, emergent language skills, literacy and numeracy?
• How can children be supported to have confidence in leading their own learning?
• How do we ensure we keep up to date with relevant theory and demonstrate how our understanding of child development supports high-quality play and learning experiences?
• How do we ensure our approach to children’s needs recognises the independent thoughts and feelings of children as individuals?
• How do we approach support for children to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills?
• How well do we support staff in undertaking their role in planning for and evaluating children’s progress?
• How effective are our processes to evaluate children’s development, progress and achievements? How well does this information gathered about children’s progress inform our planning and reporting to parents/others?
• How do we maximise opportunities for children to be challenged, creative and engaged in their play and learning?