EP24 Play and Schools

In this episode of 'Pondering Play and Therapy,' Philippa and Julie dive into the critical role of play within school environments. They discuss the decline in playtime availability over the years across primary, secondary, and nursery schools. They explore how therapists can collaborate with schools to support children's learning and well-being through play. The conversation highlights how play helps children learn, manage transitions, and cope with anxiety, ultimately promoting their overall development. They also emphasise the importance of tailoring approaches to fit each child's individual needs.

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Transcript

Philippa: 0:03

Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me, Philippa,

Julie: 0:10

and me, Julie. This week's episode, we're going to be thinking about play and schools and partly thinking about play within normal life of schools. How much play is available to children how it's maybe decreased over many years. Thinking about play in primary schools, secondary schools, nursery schools, but also thinking about how as therapists, we can work with schools to help them to understand the child that they're caring for, thinking about play and school and therapy, because certainly as a therapist, that's been a big chunk of my work. Where I take the therapeutic skills into school and actually see individual or groups of children within a school setting. So that's the content list for the next wee while and this episode, I think

Philippa: 1:11

also, Julie, I wonder if it's about how play can support schools, but play that can support children in a lesson, support children to be able to learn. Play has a bigger role, I think, than just playing on the playground oh, absolutely. There's that aspect of it as well, isn't it? How do we support children to access education and play can be a conduit, I think is the word for that.

Julie: 1:42

Yeah, so thinking about play in schools and seeing, I mean we are both working in England and we have contact with the English education system and we've become aware over the last few years of how different that is in Scotland. The big thrust within Scotland's education system and embedded in government is that play is an absolute essential for children outside school, but also in school. So I think Scotland is way ahead of England in that way. But we also know in England we have the early years foundation stage, which is the Naugh to five children. So children in their first year or so of formal schooling where play is embedded, but interestingly play then disappears. From the regulatory body, which in England is called Offstead, England and Wales play just disappears as something that's looked at and required within schools. But of course, we know all schools have, sometimes they call it a break time, sometimes they call it a play time. So yeah, we've got the outside play and we'll think about that. What might that look like? But as you said, how is play embedded within the life of the indoor school that may involve the aspects of learning, of socialization, of being able to transition from one activity to another and also do that big transition from inside to outside and back in again, which we know many of the children that we work with really struggle with. They can be fairly regulated in the classroom for, 20, 30 minutes to do a task. But the transition time is the time where things get really wobbly for them. So it's thinking about play in all its aspects. Primary schools, which in this country are generally four till 11 year olds. Secondary schools sometimes called high schools, generally 11 year olds to, well now 18, till 16. Thinking about play in every aspect of school right through the education span. Can I just

Philippa: 4:12

pick up on something? We said Julie. And that's only because I guess my experience of parenting my children maybe is not that they can concentrate for 20 and 30 minutes in a lesson. I think for some children, yeah, that's really difficult. I agree. Five minutes is a maximum amount of time for lots of different reasons. And we've talked in previous episodes about children who struggle just to be in their body just to sit or just to be still. Actually, 20 minutes is a really long time to be in your body. But for some children, certainly for my child, sitting for 20 minutes was pretty much impossible. And I have loads of funny stories I could tell you where, the teachers have called me in and said, do you know what he's doing today? He was, lying on his back and shuffling around the floor. But he always was listening. If they said what have we been talking about? They would be able to answer exactly what they were talking about. They would be able to answer the question. It wasn't that they weren't listening, it wasn't that they were misbehaving, they just needed to be occupied. To be moving and play was a really, in my view, is a really good way to be able to do that. But the expectation is you sit in this seat and it's really hard for me. Do you know what I mean? But for a kid it's impossible, I think sometimes.

Julie: 5:39

Absolutely. And I think, in saying that sort of 20 or 30 minutes, that could be 20 or 30 minutes of concentration. But that doesn't, I'm not implying that would be sitting still with a pencil in my hand at the desk, but I have realized that is often the expectation, even for four year olds, five-year-olds, which in other parts of the world, they'd be appalled at that. We expect our four and five year olds to be sat at a desk for, 20, 30 minutes potentially at a time, which we know physiologically is very tricky. Some children manage that and are very regulated in that, but for most four or five year olds, their bodies are built to move. But that doesn't mean, as you said, that they're not taking in what's being shared, what's being spoken about, what's being presented or what they're able to explore. And I think even before we came onto this call, Philippa, I was saying I've got, if somebody could see my desk, maybe I'll need to do a photograph of my desk as we are doing these podcasts, because I've got my coloring pencils, I've actually got pastels out today. I've got a few elastic bands. I've got a ribbon I've got a ruler. I've got an old five pound note from Scotland that I keep folding up. For me, there's something about having something in my hands, what somebody else would call fiddling. Oh, I've got a lovely piece of Blue Tech at the moment as well. Doing something with my hands allows me to concentrate on you and our conversation. I wouldn't be able to do this podcast sitting still. It is not so much, I don't need to move my whole body. So I'm sat on a chair with a couple of cushions. I don't need, I feel I don't need to move my feet, but for me, there's something about I need to move my hands in order to focus. And whether somebody would call that fiddling a nonsense, I can imagine if I, and I was doing that at school that wouldn't have gone down so well, but it's playing, for me it's playing with the items on the desk, which allows me to focus.

Philippa: 8:04

Yeah. And I think, so I think there's that kind of needing to move ISN there. And for my child, that was something that was always necessary. And I was very lucky that my child went to a very small school that we could accommodate lots of these things and kinda give some boundary to it. They were allowed to move, they were allowed to do things that, if we were going into the hall and doing the Chris Tingle ceremony, they had three Chris Tingles because the first two would've been demolished and the orange eaten and the sweets flicked across the floor. And you still wanted them to have a Chris Ingle to take up. So there'd be a third one that, you know. And so I was very lucky and we had a school and a school, relationships with the teachers that enabled that to happen. I also think there's the other children who maybe have experienced early life trauma or adversity and those sorts of things, and why the classroom they are really hypervigilant and really hyper aware and the not being able to sit still is because they are, their nervous system. Is on high alert and they need to know what's going on. And actually sitting still at a desk and concentrating on the teacher can be really difficult. It might be like we've talked about that their body just needs, they just needs to move because I. They haven't got the strength that they need to sit for that amount of time. And so you can't be concentrating and learning if what you are trying to do is make your body do something that it literally can't do. I think about it, it's like going to the gym and being on the treadmill or lifting weights and you are really at the end of your capacity and knackered and somebody says to you can, recite the seven times table, you'd be like, really, mate, go and do one. I am just about to not die on this treadmill, or whatever it is. And that's so there's that thing that actually all their good energy is being either to be in their body or. To make sure they're safe, that hypervigilance, that hyper awareness, especially if you've got movement or people coming in and out the classes or they can hear stuff in the corridor. Actually, what that child is gonna be doing is concentrating on those other things because they need to know that those things aren't gonna come and kill them. They're not gonna die. So they're definitely not gonna be listening to their phonics or, how a volcano works or stuff like that.'cause that's not the stuff that's gonna keep them safe. What is gonna keep them safe is knowing who's just about to walk in the door and so children then fidget and move and can't sit still or go and hide or go and run and all those sorts of things. And I often. Work with schools and think with schools about how can we help these children, whether they're little people in primary school, high school's worse because you do a lot more moving with a lot more teachers, with a lot of different presentations. And that being able to read somebody's body language and know what they're gonna be like is really hard, especially when you are hypervigilant and hyper aware. And when you've got one class teacher, for most of the day, at least you can settle in. When you are changing every hour and a half, every two hours, every time you walk in that classroom, you've got to reassess how safe am I? Am I gonna die today? What is this gonna be like? And like I say often then it's with schools, it's thinking about how can we help these children, these young people, be able to access learning in a way that is. Helps them in their body. So whether it's that they need to move a bit more, whether, and play can and play, I don't mean in the formal sense of going and getting the cars out, just being able to fidget. Just being able to stand up, just gonna get a job, having a job so that they actually can move. That actually, it doesn't make them stand out. They just go and take the register to the office. They just go and collect the pencil, give the pencils out. How do we help children and young people reduce that hyper vigilance? Use the energy that they've got to learn rather than to fit into a system. Does that make sense?

Julie: 12:38

I think that I, before I became a play therapist, I was primary school teacher for a long time, and there were lots of children in that school. Who were the children who really struggled to be able to fit in with what, as a teacher I was expecting, and I think if I was back in the classroom now, I would do things very differently. I've learned a lot more about how the body works, about how the mind works, how the emotions work, and I, almost asked forgiveness of some of those children. I thought that I just didn't understand what was going on. So I'm very grateful for the learning and the experiences of other people that have really helped me understand that. But I do remember the sending, because sending a child to another class or invite, sending a child on a task rather than as a punishment. And this was a faith school, so we had bibles in the school, and a Bible is pretty heavy. It's quite a thick book. So if I had a fizzy child, a child that was rocking, swinging about to explode, I would send them on a mission to take all the bibles from our classroom to the furthest away classroom. But they had to take them in sets of five. So over half an hour, they would move all these bibles up and down stairs to the other side of the school and back again. And it really did their muscles a lot of good. It helped'em to concentrate and focus. They became much more regulated, gave the rest of the class a break because this child's movements were very distracting course for me and the other pupils. And a task was completed. Often I'd send them down to reception. I'd have to go with a note to say, I know you don't need these, but can you please accept them? A couple of days later, I'd send the same child to go and collect all those Bibles. Again, I think the child knew what was going on. I knew what was going on, but it didn't shame them. It didn't send them out of the class for being naughty. And sometimes it was a useful task, but, a sense of bringing playfulness into how as a staff member I might be able to help a child and help myself and the rest of the class manage a situation that is getting a bit bubbly and just acknowledging, gosh, it looks like your body needs to do a lot of moving. Oh, that's oh, could you be really helpful? All these Bibles need to go down to Mr. So and and it would really, it makes me smile now to think about it. The other thing is, you were talking there about the very hypervigilant child who needs to sit so they can see the door. I think I've made the mistake often of having the child that needed me to be close to me, but actually what they needed to be is sat in the furthest corner of the classroom where they didn't have their backs to anybody. They could see the whole class and they could see the door. They didn't need to be close to me. They needed to be able to see everything. And I remember one boy who was, he had a troubled start in life. He was still living a very troubled life. He knew the entire timetable of every class in the school. We would just have, I can still remember his name. I can still see him. We would just have to ask him, oh where will year one be? At the moment? Oh, they'll just be coming in for break. But then they've got maths. He, because he kept such an eye on everything, I think for his own safety. But again, we would use that as something helpful. Oh. Oh, I wanna send, where would they be at the moment? But he knew the entire timetable as a whole school.

Philippa: 16:48

And that's hard work though, isn't it? Because you've got those children who need to kinda see the whole thing and then you've got the children who need to be really close and sit at the front where they need the teacher to, touch their shoulder when they're talking so that they feel connected and grounded and safe. Yes. That they need, to hold the teacher's blue ack or to hold the teacher's board robber because that is that connection with the their safe adult. Yes. It's the adult that keeps them safe compared to the child who sits and the survey, everything. It's the child that's keeping themselves safe. Yeah. And it's different for each child. And it's thinking about how. How do we incorporate that into these very structured days? Because, I dunno about you, Julie, but sometimes I, will see a child after school, whether they're a teenager or a little person, and they are exhausted. They are absolutely exhausted by this day at school because some of them have been holding it together, so they haven't exploded. Some of them have been masking. So they've got this really big smile on at school day that says, I am great, I'm perfect. I'm gonna do everything that you ask me to. But actually inside they're like a little swan and their anxiety is so great and they're so worried about disappointing the teacher or being disappointed to their friends or failing try so hard, and they mask all these things that when they come into to therapy and also at home, it's like, whew, there's this big explosion. All these things that have been held in at school are out. Or there's the opposite of that, the child or the young person that just can't hold it in school. They don't wanna be misbehaving, they don't wanna be being difficult. But actually it's so hard for them, it's so anxiety provoking. They really don't know where they are or what they're expected to do. And they can't, even if they know they can't because their brain isn't working'cause they're keeping themselves safe or their body isn't working'cause it isn't working in that way. Or they're feeling, shamed or rejected. Yeah. So by the time they come into therapy, it's ugh, I'm such a bad person. I've had this really bad day. It's all my fault. It's because I, there is something wrong with me. And actually there is nothing wrong with this kid. It's just all these other things. And that is so hard, and we see it in therapy, but parents see it at home, don't they? That every day their child is coming home and. There's this dysregulation or there's this collapse or disconnect. And that's really hard to do that every day and see your child in this level of distress. And schools are saying no, he is got to behave. Or No, they are behaving. There's no problems here. Don't know what, you must be home. Must be something you are doing at home. Because actually here they're perfectly fine. They're achieving or he's terrible, he's not gonna be able to stay in this school. And those just, it's just an overwhelming, I just have so much empathy for children and families that are experiencing this every day. And for the teachers who are trying stuff Yeah. To get the children to tick a box that somebody else's put there for them.'cause they've got their own pressures, haven't they? Of this is what we are expected to do. Yeah.

Julie: 20:24

And I think there is that huge disconnect between the passion and the desire for staff and teachers teaching assistants. Any, anybody who's in the, on the school staff, the kitchen staff, the caretaking staff. The admin staff who want to have good relationships with one another and with the children and want to have good relationships with the families. But there are lots and lots of pressures that mean that with 30 odd children in the classroom and budget pressures and ofsted press pressures the curriculum pressures, it's so hard as a member of staff. To actually meet each child's individual needs or to even get to know each child well enough to know what's gonna suit them. And I think it's a really hard place to be. I don't think I would like to be back in the classroom now. It's about 12 years ago that I left. But I, it's interesting when I was looking at the Scottish government plan for play for children in Scotland, or play for anybody actually in Scotland, a huge part of it is now embedding play within the training, initial training for teachers

Philippa: 21:44

and

Julie: 21:44

putting play as a regular part of the professional development training for staff who've been teaching for many years to look at the benefits of play. Not just the amount of time a child might be outside in the yard in the playground, but thinking about the different types of play. My memory of my teacher training was if you can build in a sort of playful activity in the teaching, then that's a good thing. So if I was teaching maths, but if you did it through something through actually cutting up a cake, then there's the motivation.'cause you get to eat the cake. So there's this sort of learning through plate. That's been around for a long time. But actually seeing the huge benefit of genuine free play. Genuine, you've got an hour and these are the limits, a bit like I might say in a therapy session. These are the limits, these are the boundaries. Time boundaries where you can go not hurting each other and so on. And just giving space for children and young people to be free without a task, without anybody assessing it. And I remember days where, I was at a school where, yes, we did the curriculum and we did everything that we were meant to do, but there was an ethos of, if you know it, it's okay to do some other things. So sometimes just in an afternoon, getting the art materials out and lots of different sized bits of papers from post-it notes or stamp size to the big A one sheets. And each child could choose what they did. And it was amazing what happened. And nothing went up on the wall. Children didn't want to keep it, they didn't have to keep it, they didn't have to talk about it. They didn't have to share it with anybody, but they were just given time to see what happens. And I think that sort of free play is very rare for children either at home or at school. So it could be, it's too structured sometimes, the teacher says, oh, you can play, but with this, and this, and you must make a this or that. And then we'll all look at it, we'll all discuss it. To me, that's not quite play. It is playfulness within education activity, but it's where is that? Let's just see what happens. Type play.

Philippa: 24:35

And that's wonderful, isn't it? And I guess for me that would be, I would love that to just go and mess and play and do those sorts of things. But there are some children that would be really scary for. Yes, absolutely. Terrifying that thought. Yeah, that you could choose because you might choose the wrong thing. You might fail, you might break it, you might disappoint. That is really for some children. And that in itself is a balance, isn't it? And I guess it's knowing the children, if you've got enough teaching staff in there, even in therapy, we know you have to get to know your children, don't you? You have to get to know how are these children gonna be? For some, you need very quite rigid structure, I would say, where it's, this is what it's gonna be. We're gonna run it in this way, you are gonna get that tin, I'm gonna get this tin. And it's very fluid and very rigid. For other children, you can be a little bit more fluid. What the goal of the session is, and you can just take some cotton balls in and a straw and kind of know that's what you're gonna do, but you'll go with where the child is and be able to flow a little bit more with that. I wonder about teachers. Kind of capacity to be able to do that when you've got so many children or even if a child needs that, how you can give that if there are four children that need that or six children that need that. And that in itself can be really hard, can't it? Is that the knowing and pitching these kind of things in the right place.'cause free play, like you say, is absolutely amazing and important and children should really be able and encouraged to do that. But it can be quite scary being in this space. And I wonder if some children need that free play on their own.

Julie: 26:41

Yes. But it, you can be on your own. This is the other thing I see in school a lot. You can be on your own, but in the presence of other people, and for some children, they'll take themselves into a small corner or sit under a table and do their own private thing without anybody else needing to look. Because as you said, that is scary or it's the sort of scary that's it's less than scary. It's because it's new. I've never, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know what's gonna come out, so I don't want anybody looking as I do it. Absolutely. I think that it the sense of building my knowledge of myself when I have a non-directed task. Yeah,

Philippa: 27:33

huge. I just wanted to come back to that difference between being new and being scared. Those are slightly different. Aren't, there's one's about, it's new and I dunno what's gonna come out. And that in itself is a little bit scary, a little bit anxious, but it's not overwhelming, is it? It's not a feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas I suppose what I wonder is there is those children where they've had, trauma backgrounds, adversity, they, or they might still be living in it where they are belittled or there is no emotional scaffolding where they are scapegoated or blamed and therefore doing things is frightening for them. And I think we, I think, yeah, we did, I think in episode four we talked about play. Being frightening and what that was around, because that kind of play, that kind of free play is, I'm gonna disappoint and somebody is gonna shame me. Somebody is gonna belittle me rather than I'm a little bit anxious about. Maybe I can't do it. Maybe I they're different, aren't they? One is, like you say, developing a sense of who you are and what you can and can't do. And it may be that you are rubbish at drawing, but that's a, you'll be able to be okay with that. Whereas the other one is, it's all my fault and I'm bad, and that's because I'm a terrible, bad person that I can't draw this picture. Or per and they're slight, they're different in the internalization of those things

Julie: 29:05

and they, so yes. Nervousness one, I would call newness and nervousness. We are built to be nervous of new things. You've said that you are gonna be learning a new skill soon, and you'll be nervous about that. Excited and nervousness can feel the same, but yes. And then there's the absolute fear, terror shut down because of past experiences that have said, I, as you said, I'm bad at this and somebody is potentially gonna shout at me. Tell me off. Somebody's going to. Rubbish what I've done and select

Philippa: 29:46

or withdraw their relationship from it.'cause I think that's another big thing.'cause for children in school, they need to, for some children who've had these experiences, they need to be pleasing the teacher, which is why you see lots of that masking because their fear is, if I disappoint that person, they're gonna withdraw that relationship from me. They're gonna withdraw their attachment, and I rely on that person to meet my needs. Yeah. And that disappointment will mean that they are going to not like me anymore. To not smile at me anymore, to not let me lunch anymore. And I know all of that's not true, but that's not what the internalization of the child is.

Julie: 30:33

Yeah. So there's the. The relationship where, as you said, it's about keeping the other close and we know knowledge of attachment theory and others it's about relationship is about what do I need to do to keep this relationship going and keep my secure person close to me. But also there are relationships within schools where it appears that the child is doing everything to reject everything, to make life difficult for their potential secure basis. And that's much harder for the staff member to understand because it's physically can be very hurtful. There are children who kick, bite, scratch. There are staff who end their weak, with injuries, with plasters on their legs and their hands because a child has attacked. And that's very frightening for the staff member as well as for the child. So that's much more tricky to think about is how to use playfulness. And I don't mean sitting down and playing a game, but just being curious and playful in our minds about what is going on for that child that caused that attack. What is it that maybe I did? What is it that was in the environment? What is it that happened three days ago that is still exploding for that child? But I've not noticed. And that is really, I don't have a solution or a let's do this. I don't have a solution for this. But even just to notice it's often not an explosion from a child is often not about what has just happened. Often we'll say to the child, oh, what happened? What's made you so upset? What made you bite Mr. But often, the child won't know that. But physiologically it could often be something that's happened days before or years before. But somehow a little hint of that has emerged again in that moment with Mr. So andSo, and that's caused that huge fear response of attack.

Philippa: 32:48

And I think there's things isn't there, like when children are on the playground there's a lot of that play would be free play as opposed to schools would say as well. They have these breaks at lunchtime, definitely in the morning. Some do in the afternoon, some don't. Depends on the school. They've got this free play. Even when it's wet play, they've got free play. But that in itself is really hard because. For some children, they've got to negotiate peer relationships, and that is if we thinking, I think you've talked about in several, there's Maslow's hierarchy of need. Actually these peer social relationships quite high up, don't they? You need quite a lot of foundations before you get to actually, let's be able to engage in this peer relationship. But if you're not feeling safe, so you are the child whose little nervous system is always on the lookout of, who's coming, where's it going, what's happening? The shouting, the noise, the balls rolling around all can be fear response. Then you've got, am I going to get any food when I get home tonight? Am I gonna have a bed to sleep in? Is there gonna be an adult there that's gonna look after me? Am I gonna be safe when I get home? You've got all those sorts of things. I remember working when I first did my social work training, I worked with teenagers, actually. They were doing their GCSEs and I worked with this one lad. Honestly, he was just amazing. He was an absolutely amazing young man and, he was so clever. Absolutely. Like naturally intelligent. He just was the most, honestly, he was amazing. He was a lovely lad. He'd had lots and lots of different foster placements, lots of different things like that and, he was super, super clever. I used the project to try and help them attain GCSEs. It was in a place called South Oxy in North London. We used to do it in different ways. So these were playful ways. I would sit in McDonald's and do maths, or they would wash my car with me. it wasn't slave labor, but it was a way that they could do things. And still learn. So we would do mass washing, washing my car, we'd sit on, and watch football match school football or something like that. But I remember saying to this young man what is it about school? Because he actually, he really wanted to learn. He wanted knowledge. He, it wasn't that he rejected it, it wasn't that he knew he was clever. So I did, I said to him what is it that stops you from going to school? And what he said was, and this has stayed with me forever really, is because it's quiet and I have to sit there. So all the things come back in my head. All the things obviously, I won't go into what those things are, but really what he was saying was, is because he has to just sit and he can't be busy and he can't keep moving and he can't distract himself by stuff. All those negative experiences, all that trauma was an opportunity to come back into his head. So he would say, how on earth can I do algebra? When what I'm thinking about is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm never gonna do algebra quiet because it opens the door for all this past experience to come inside. So what the school saw was this naughty, disobedient, aggressive, violent kid. And he was excluded until he was in this project. Whereas actually what he was a kid who was. Trying his best to be in a classroom and fight all these years of demons, who was super intelligent, who had super amount of potential. But because he had to sit at this desk and work in this way, he couldn't access it, the learning because it wasn't the right environment. But, and he got his GCSEs he did, was, I won't tell the story. It was quite tricky. But him and two others got their GCSEs in and all, but they learnt by washing cars, by sitting in McDonald's, by Trek, walking. So we would track, we would go and like I say, sit and watch school football while we were doing English. And they got their GCSEs at different levels, but they all achieved it. But none of it was traditionally educated. They were ama absolutely amazing kids. They must be probably in their late thirties now. But yeah, and I suppose what I'm saying is that traditional style of school, of being a having to sit is just doesn't fit when you've, when you aren't feeling safe, when you haven't got that ma, which is where I started to talk about, wasn't it, that Maslow's hierarchy of need. If you are stuck at the bottom, how on earth are you ever gonna get up to the top where you are open enough to learn or engage in peer relationships? This used to just fight all the time, but he fought all the time because actually that was the way that got rid of those things in his head. And then he got sent home and so then he didn't have to sit. And that was, he just got sent outta class and then he was excluded from school. And so the cycle began, but why wouldn't you? If that was us, we wouldn't do any different, would we? Because how would you survive that when you are a kid, when you are 14, 13, and what you remember and what you are feeling is all those horrendous things. How do you do anything any different?

Julie: 38:38

I'm thinking of a very different child who, she was 11 when I'm thinking about this. Who had, as you said, her Maslow's hierarchy of needs were not always met. She wasn't always fed, she wasn't always treated well. There wasn't always an adult in the home. She had quite a tricky journey to and from school. We suspected there was physical punishment going on at home, quite brutal physical punishment. But actually the way she managed that, the way her brain and body worked is when she came into school, she wasn't masking, but she switched off home. She switched off anything to do with her family, and there was, she was the oldest and there were several other siblings, and she was able to learn and achieve brilliantly. I taught music in the school for a while. She learned a musical instrument. She had friends, she played, she completed all her work. She was a high achiever. And I remember when we became aware of some of the stuff that was going on at home, trying to open a conversation with her about that. Or I hear from dad that this has happened, or I hear that mom's been living in another country for a long while. We weren't aware of that and that you've often been looking after your siblings and da. She was just, and she was very clear. Don't talk about that stuff in school. School is my safe place. I don't want any of that to come into school. So there was also, there's also that capacity. You have your young man, Shane and this young girl, she had found her way around it by absolutely cutting off everything that was, a adverse stuff that was continually happening at home. She had managed to create this off switch. And totally focused on school. Her friendships, her learning until three 30 and then it all got switched off again. Holidays, breaks from school were really tricky for her because she didn't get that break, but her mind and body were able to do a switch on and a switch off. So it's, I suppose that's something I'm becoming more and more aware of, as I'm teaching therapy to students and thinking about my own referrals that come is not presuming that because something is happening at home or has happened in their lives, that certain things will happen later on in life. So not presuming if a child has experienced trauma, abuse, neglect. That there will be certain outcomes afterwards. Because the hugely interesting thing about human beings is we all react differently. We all respond to things differently. And so in school, I think going back to schools and play, sometimes we will, I might know about a child who, on paper there is nothing adverse going on. Child is living with two parents, child is living in a permanent home, child is clearly fed, watered, clothed, goes on holiday, parents are working, there's a social life. And yet that child is really poor of spirit in school. They're a really collapsed child. Or they just were talking about nervousness earlier on, will find it so difficult to even try to do something. And yet they wouldn't meet any of the criteria for adverse childhood experiences. And yet that child could be very needy in school. And that can be very confusing for staff because it is not matching up. But somehow that child's experience of themself has been really not able to develop somehow.

Philippa: 42:45

And I guess that's because we don't always know what's going on, do we? We don't know.'cause sometimes you might have all your physical needs met, but your emotional needs are lacking and we don't know what that is like. And that's not, again, about saying parents aren't doing their best, but we don't know what. The parental situation is whether there is, depression, mental health, parents working away. There's lots, I guess we don't always know, but I suppose what I think is that Children, really, they don't want to be getting into trouble they don't want to be misbehaving. They don't want to be the kid that the other kids don't want to play with or move away from or are scared of. They don't want that. And if that's happening, there is an underlying reason for it. Even if it's not obvious or even if we don't know. And it's thinking about how do we work differently with that project. I know it's a, it's an extreme one, but there was ways to help these young people learn. It just wasn't in a traditional way. They did learn. They had the capacity to learn. If they weren't in that environment for other children like yours, it might be that they need lots of structure. They need that one adult in that school that has that relationship with them that they feel within that school. This isn't, this is a safe place. This person gets me. I'm gonna be fed, I'm gonna. Have my needs met. And I know I'm safe here. So I can learn here. And, but it's still understanding those things. And then understanding, I think the other things is things like Mother's Day, father's Day, grandparents' Day. All schools do those. And I know that we try and soften it now, but those can be really hard for children, even children in birth families because you don't know what their family's you don't know what, what's going on. And I suppose it's not about changing those, I'm not saying that we should never do anything and everything should be blanket and wide, but it is about actually. Life is shades of gray, isn't it? And how do we have a spectrum of those sorts of things? Do we have to have Mother's Day or can we have an adult day? Is there some way that actually we can think about, there's more than this narrow band that we fit in. So we don't always have to sit at a desk for my son, he actually had a square, and that was, there was a desk within the square, but he could stand, he could sit, he could lie, he could roll, he could do whatever want, but within this square, so that there was a boundary to it. Falling under the teacher's desk and fiddling with her feet and her shoes, when she was trying to teach or whatever it was, but he didn't have to. Sit at a desk. So is the ways you know, is there, a carpet, do they have to sit crosslegged on a carpet or can they lie on their side? Can they roll around in the beanbags? Can they, sure. Like with teenager, I, I worked with, he got very dysregulated and food regulated him. So he used to take Jacob's crackers and put them in his locker. So we were, he wasn't gonna have all these nice, sweet treats. Because then he would always be going out, but. When he got a little bit dysregulated, he could go out and go to the lockers and eat a Jacob's cracker. And that with the crunchiness and the feeling of being nurtured of the crackers and the little smiley face that his carer had put on the Jacob's crackers was enough to kinda regulate him back again. And then you could go back in and carry on and nobody bothered. And look, I think, when I work with schools, often teachers will say, but if we do it for them, we'll have to do it for everybody. And that is just not true. I'll just tell you one more. There was a nursery I worked with and there was a little lad who'd, he was with his mom, and he'd lived in a household of where there was quite significant domestic violence. He was four, so he was in the kind of the preschool bit just before year one. Lunchtime was horrendous. He just screamed, he kicked, he threw things, all these sorts of things because he wanted his dessert first. So I said let him have his dessert first. And they were like no, because everybody will want their dessert first. And so the conversation I had was this little boy doesn't think there's gonna be any dessert left. That's why he is kicking off. That's why he is worrying. He thinks he's gonna have his dinner. He eats quite slowly so there's not gonna be any dessert left. Because that's been his experience that he hasn't got these things. He hasn't had his internet. So he needs his costed. It was particularly costed. He needs his costed first so he knows he's had his costed and then he'll eat his dinner. And I said to them, my get bet is that all these other children have be lived in a house where they're not worrying about costed and they know that the structure of lunchtime is main meal pudding. And they're not gonna, they might think, oh, he's own his coed first, but they are going to eat their dinner and then they're gonna have their custard'cause they're not gonna think, oh, such and such is at all the custard.'cause they trust that you've got enough SD for everybody. He doesn't trust that you've got enough SD for everybody. And that is the difference. Let's just try it. And anyway, they gave him his costed first and it worked. He had his coed and then he had his dinner and none of the other children asked for the costed first.'cause they all thought it was odd having your costed first.'cause you always have your dinner first. And so they didn't even think and need to have a costed first. They just at their meal and they trusted, there'd be enough pudding. He would thought differently. He thought there wouldn't be enough pudding. And then, yeah, so then he had his pudding first. And I'm not saying it's always that simple, but sometimes we, it's what does this mean for this kid? Can we do something different? Yeah.

Julie: 48:57

And that takes us back to that kind of word. The concept of equality. Equality doesn't mean treating everybody exactly the same. It's about equally meeting everybody's needs. Paying attention to everybody's needs, giving everybody equal care and attention and provision. That's equality. Not giving everybody exactly the same thing. And I think, the children I've worked with both as a teacher and as a therapist, get that completely. We had a hearing impaired child in the classroom, so that child needed to wear a lanyard around their I wore a lanyard around my neck and that child had hearing aids and a little sort of battery pack in their pocket. It wasn't that every child then in the class wanted to have the equipment that child had. They recognized that child had a hearing impairment. They understood that if they or I spoke, they had to wear this lanyard, which had a microphone in it. And we all learn a lot about hearing impairment and technology and facilities. So absolutely I've very rarely come across a situation of a child saying that's unfair. He gets to lie on his tummy to do his maths work. Everybody needs to lie on their tummies. Children understand very quickly that their friends, their peers, others in their class have different needs. And I think the more we can talk about that and the more that we can introduce child or learn from children about how accepting they are of difference, the better. I think that view often comes from staff that if we do that for one child, the law want that.

Philippa: 50:47

And also the worry that parents will think'cause the other thing for me is if they all wanted the cu first. So what do that would be my view. And I mean they didn't, but, so if you eat your custard before you eat your mashed potatoes, as long as you are having a balanced, healthy diet throughout the day, really what difference does it make? And that's a whole different conversation. But I do wonder if, some of the pressures for teachers come from one, the system that they're in and two. That they may feel that parents' expecta about parents' expectations about, I know there's this kid in your class. But again, I think if we have these conversations, if we talk about it, if we understand it, the lad who goes out and eat his joke crackers, it's not it in anybody. It's not making it any different. But actually he's improving the class in many ways.'cause if he doesn't go out and eat his Jacob's crackers, he's just gonna disrupt it. He is just gonna keep asking for the teacher's attention. So actually the children in the class benefit more from him having that difference and if he has to be the same. And I think it's just about thinking about kids are tally us. I have a need. And we are the adults. And our job is to think about what is that need and how do we meet it? And a need is different than a want. I wanna play my Xbox is very different than I need to move, and those sorts of things. Sometimes kids do need to play the Xbox, but I suppose there's a difference between a need and a want. If a kid has got a need, surely our job as an adult is to think about, okay, what is that need? How do we help you meet that need with us, rather than having to explode? Because if a kid can't be in a classroom, because it's really hard for them, eventually they're not gonna be in the classroom. They're either gonna do it by going and getting the Jacob crackers, or they're gonna doing it by chipping the table and effing at the teacher one way or another. That kid is leaving the classroom. Let's do it in the way that is helpful for everybody and doesn't erode self-esteem. Erode, self-view.

Julie: 53:02

And Phil, it's really interesting. I know we're probably coming to an end fairly soon, but we've started thinking about play and schools and thinking about the provision of play and schools. But actually what we've ended up coming towards more is about how the staff or the adults in the school the adult staff in the school can use their own resources for playfulness in thinking about how to meet the needs of a child, and also tuning into what the child's body is already doing. Or their lips or their hands are already doing and seeing if that can be facilitated in a playful, accepting way rather than trying to squash the child into the school box. So we've, yeah. So we've gone on a bit of a journey from thinking about how children might play in a school and being in the playground and playing in the classroom and so on. But actually, we are beginning to think now about how a playful accepting attitude can be developed in a classroom that, as you said, meets the need, not the want, the need of a child to stay within the system and stay within the peer group. But can we do that in a playful way? That keeps us all thinking and reflecting and being creative rather than, what are the rules? Let me stick that child into the rules, because that's when the explosion happens. So if it involves, I've got a young girl that I'm working with at the moment, and she goes to school every day with two handkerchiefs, one with each of her parents' perfumes on them. And she's allowed she has that in her bag and as she leaves, she comes to my house for therapy. As she leaves the therapy session, we have a ritual of food. There's a lot of food in the session. There's a lot of food leaving the sessions. And one of the ways for her to leave and make the transition from therapy and a good hour's journey across London to go back to school when she enters back into school at lunchtime, it's a tricky transition, is I have to fill her pockets. With dried mango, and she lets me know which order to fill those pockets, and then she leaves my house eating. And that's not in any of the play therapy books. It's not one of the normal, wouldn't normally have food in a therapy session. But for this child that meets her need, and as you said, it's not harming anyone, dried mango in her pockets. Mom brings a bag of dried mango every couple of weeks, and I keep it in my house and it's what we do. And I know at school she has biscuit breaks, she has mango breaks. It's really recognized in her school that's what this little one needs. And she's thriving academically because her physical needs are being met.

Philippa: 56:16

that attachment needs, it's that it's emotional as well. It's that this adult keeps me safe. This adult is connected to me, this adult understands me. And that's what those things are about, isn't it? It's about, again, when we are thinking about the needs of children, it's that very first bit of I am safe, I'm connected, I'm attuned to, and that's what we need. And when we are doing any of these things, that's the bit we're eating. It's not, we know that the kid is eating the Jacobs crackers or the younger or the mango. They're not hungry. They've had enough food. It's not about hunger. This is about connection. It's about nurture. It's about we are present with you and you can take something from this environment into this environment. The smiley face on the Jacob crackers said to the lad that's leaving. I'm still thinking about you. I'm still present. I'm still here. Even though you are not still, you are not with me. I'm still looking after you. I am your parent. And that's what that the Jacob's crackers and the Somali face were not that he's hungry. I guess it's the same with the mango. It's not that she's hungry, is that the connection remains.

Julie: 57:26

It's about the connection, but it's also, I think physiologically being able to chew Yeah. And to concentrate on that, to salivate, to move her mouth really does help to regulate her whole body because she's concentrating on her mouth. And she's getting that. Feedback from her mouth, which is so important for her. Less so having physical things. I'm much more, I need physical things in my hands to have that input from for her, it's her mouth. But yeah, I think there's so much playfulness that can be present in a school. And something we haven't touched on and probably don't have time to touch on today, is the playfulness between adults in a school and children seeing that and children witnessing staff having a bit of fun between each other. The way staff interact with one another. The playfulness of sending the set of Bibles down to another class when they're not really needed. Everybody knows what it's about, but let's still do it. Keeping ourselves as the adults in a school alive through play, I think is crucial as well. Just not to do with the children, but also having a big impact on the children because they can witness how we are with one another. And I think that lightens a school very much. It's not to be, throwing water over each other at the school fate and, having a big laugh, but just the way staff can interact with one another in a room. I think children can really pick that up as, ah, okay, this is another way of being.

Philippa: 59:19

Absolutely. But I think it's a place we need to stop now, Julie. And that's maybe something that we could come on to because I think that I. Also works in schools. It works with parents, it works in therapy, really, that, how as adults with the parent and the therapist how we use playfulness there. So that's probably a good episode to do later on in the year.

Julie: 59:45

Go play in the workplace. Yeah, play at work. You could do a whole load on there.

Philippa: 59:52

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Pond Dream Play and Therapy. As usual, if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit a subscribe, follow to our Facebook page and we will see you next time. Thank you. Bye.