Letting them play: How kids grasp the world
Print Edition
LAST week, as we approached Hakuba mountain to begin our family ski holiday I turned to my 5-year-old son, and said, “won’t it be fun, you can join your ski group and learn how to ski,” to which he replied, “Mummy, I just want to play in the snow!”
One cannot underestimate the importance of play in a child’s life. Playing alone or with others, children develop the most essential of life skills: perseverance, resilience, concentration, focus, empathy, self-regulation and the ability to think critically.
This “hidden” curriculum is what underpins attainment. If a child has never learnt to deal with failure, what happens when he or she does not succeed in an examination in later life?
At Dulwich College Shanghai, we create an environment that is stimulating and enriching with practitioners who provoke, scaffold and learn alongside the children to create enjoyable and challenging play experiences.
Learning through play is naturally motivating for young children and involves a level of sophistication where children have first hand experiences in exploring, discovering, constructing, consolidating, creating and imagining.
So where does an “academic” curriculum fit in? The answer is simple: When a child is ready.
At DUCKS, we follow a rigorous and systematic approach to reading, which ensures the best possible start in literacy. We also know that children develop at different rates. In fact, a curriculum that is too formal for young learners has shown to lead to poorer performance, less motivation and lower self-esteem in some children.
No child is the same and readiness for “academic” learning will differ for each child. Some may be more suited for academic preschools and others not.
However, as my son reminded me on the ski slopes, never underestimate the value of play — it is how children learn best.
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