Tuesday, September 30, 2008
playground politics
Just found this on YouTube: "Playground Politics". Winner, Best Positive Message MoveOn.org's Obama in 30 Seconds Contest by Diane Paragas Brooklyn, NY
free kit!
hattie in conversation with daughter dora
Hattie Coppard will be talking about SNUG & the curriculum at the TES Education Show 2008 at Olympia on 10th October from 11am - 12pm in the workshop space. Snug will be on display on stand C10.
Click HERE for an opportunity to win £11,000 worth of Snug kit on the teaching exhibitions website.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
snugmobile!
Here are photos of Sutcliffe Play's special SNUG, lorry used to deliver the Snug Kit to schools across the UK.
Now how cool is that!?!
And Hattie is on the road again this week with Robin, Noel and Bernard for another of their Genius Loci sessions, this time in Edinburgh. For details on how to book a place email lisad@sutcliffeplay.co.uk or telephone 01977 653200.
Now how cool is that!?!
And Hattie is on the road again this week with Robin, Noel and Bernard for another of their Genius Loci sessions, this time in Edinburgh. For details on how to book a place email lisad@sutcliffeplay.co.uk or telephone 01977 653200.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
shell drawing
Tim spotted this beautiful line of white shells that cuts across the beach at Shingle Street in Suffolk...what dedicated holidaymakers!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
snug cosy
Thanks to Jo Klaces for knitting us this beautiful Snug & Outdoor tea cosy.
The pot has never been snugger, our tea breaks never more inspirational!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
summer party
Partygoers, including our administrator, Karee Barclay and daughter Kemi, at the Snug & Outdoor/if:book Summer Bash, plus young guests having fun with bits of Snug kit. Oh, happy day!
kids need risky play
"A major study by Play England, part of the National Children's Bureau, found that half of all children have been stopped from climbing trees, 21 per cent have been banned from playing conkers and 17 per cent have been told they cannot take part in games of tag or chase. Some parents are going to such extreme lengths to protect their children from danger that they have even said no to hide-and-seek."
'Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children,' said Adrian Voce, director of Play England. 'They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up."
Thanks to Bob Stein for spotting this article from the Guardian.
'Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children,' said Adrian Voce, director of Play England. 'They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up."
Thanks to Bob Stein for spotting this article from the Guardian.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Appeal Court judgement changes law on risk in playgrounds
In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal has made an important judgement which goes some way towards rebalancing the law in the field of health and safety.
It has quashed the conviction of a Head Teacher who was prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act after a tragic accident in which a child fell down some steps in the school playground and subsequently died. In it's ruling, the Court concluded that there was simply no evidence that the child was exposed to risk by the conduct of the school as required by the statute.
The judgement makes clear that from now on, in order to prosecute under the Act, the authorities will need to prove that the injured person was exposed to a real as opposed to a "fanciful or hypothetical" risk to health and safety. Previously the courts had given the term 'risk' it's ordinary meaning of denoting the possibility of danger rather than actual danger.
Mr Porter had run the preparatory school since 1975 which catered for children aged 3-16 years. It was not a purpose-built school, and part of the site was located in a disused quarry. There was a higher and lower playground which were linked by a set of brick steps. The school had a superb safety record and there had never been an accident on the steps.
The accident happened during supervised playtime. Having made his way down the steps, the child (aged 3 3/4 years) jumped from the fourth step from the bottom, lost his footing and fell. He suffered a minor head injury and was taken to hospital where he subsequently died after contracting MRSA.
The Head was prosecuted under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Under this section, he had a duty to ensure as far as reasonably practicable, that children were not exposed to risks to their health or safety by the 'conduct of the school'.
In his judgement Lord Justice Moses gave helpful guidance as to how the courts should approach the question of whether a risk was real or hypothetical. The fact that there had been no previous accident on these steps was relevant. So was the fact that there was nothing wrong with the design or construction of the steps, nor did they create a foreseeable risk of danger. Significantly, there were numerous other places in the playground from which a child might choose to jump. He said that the fact that a young child might slip, trip or choose to jump from one height to a lower level is "part of everyday life". Where risk is part of everyday life, it is less likely that an injured child could be said to have been exposed to it as a result of the conduct of the school.
It has quashed the conviction of a Head Teacher who was prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act after a tragic accident in which a child fell down some steps in the school playground and subsequently died. In it's ruling, the Court concluded that there was simply no evidence that the child was exposed to risk by the conduct of the school as required by the statute.
The judgement makes clear that from now on, in order to prosecute under the Act, the authorities will need to prove that the injured person was exposed to a real as opposed to a "fanciful or hypothetical" risk to health and safety. Previously the courts had given the term 'risk' it's ordinary meaning of denoting the possibility of danger rather than actual danger.
Mr Porter had run the preparatory school since 1975 which catered for children aged 3-16 years. It was not a purpose-built school, and part of the site was located in a disused quarry. There was a higher and lower playground which were linked by a set of brick steps. The school had a superb safety record and there had never been an accident on the steps.
The accident happened during supervised playtime. Having made his way down the steps, the child (aged 3 3/4 years) jumped from the fourth step from the bottom, lost his footing and fell. He suffered a minor head injury and was taken to hospital where he subsequently died after contracting MRSA.
The Head was prosecuted under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Under this section, he had a duty to ensure as far as reasonably practicable, that children were not exposed to risks to their health or safety by the 'conduct of the school'.
In his judgement Lord Justice Moses gave helpful guidance as to how the courts should approach the question of whether a risk was real or hypothetical. The fact that there had been no previous accident on these steps was relevant. So was the fact that there was nothing wrong with the design or construction of the steps, nor did they create a foreseeable risk of danger. Significantly, there were numerous other places in the playground from which a child might choose to jump. He said that the fact that a young child might slip, trip or choose to jump from one height to a lower level is "part of everyday life". Where risk is part of everyday life, it is less likely that an injured child could be said to have been exposed to it as a result of the conduct of the school.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
rolling and roles
Here's a nice pic Tim took of people rolling down a grass slope at the Thames Barrier Park.
Hattie is a speaker at the forthcoming Places to Play conference which will launch Luton's Playbuilder programme. She will be talking about how we can deliver a truly playable public realm and what role artists can play.
Monday, June 23, 2008
urban wordplay
Sarah Butler is a writer and literature development worker whose consultancy company UrbanWords specialises in projects which use creative writing as a way to explore and question our relationship to place. She interviewed Hattie and Chris about public projects involving text and you can read her full report, A Place for Words at
www.urbanwords.org.uk/urbanwords/placeforwords1.html
Here's an extract:
"Ask children what they want in their new playground and they might say, oh, some swings over there in the corner, maybe a slide, and a sandpit. Now get a writer to guide them through the process of creating a group poem that asks them what they think play is; what makes them feel safe; and how their dream playground would make them feel, like the organisation Snug and Outdoor do when they start to design new play spaces for children, and you get a totally different picture. A group of children with physical and learning disabilities in Southampton, working with the poet Chris Meade, told Snug and Outdoor that their dream playground is the place that makes you go ahhhhh setting up a real challenge and opportunity for the designers and architects to respond to. By engaging creatively with space and their emotional responses to space, the children were able to get past the play spaces they already had or had already experienced and re-imagine the possibilities of a new space.
Snug and Outdoor used a similar process in a public art project, Hackney Hotlinks, that explored the relationship people living, working or visiting Mare Street in Hackney had with that place and what their aspirations and hopes might be for a regenerated Mare Street. Using writing workshops, spontaneous conversations and a temporary installation of visual and sound projection, the artists were able to get past the negative and the everyday and start really exploring the relationship between people and place. Hattie Coppard, Director of Snug and Outdoor is adamant about the benefits of creative consultation. It’s about exploring imagination, not gripes, she says. It’s about getting people to express something they haven’t imagined yet."
Sarah is now doing further research, funded by Arts Council England, looking at ways of:
* Effectively consulting with communities – helping to give voice to groups of residents who might find conventional consultation techniques hard to handle
* Helping developers, architects and communities think creatively about the spaces they inhabit/want to create
* Finding ways of expressing Heritage and natural ecologies in the creation of new spaces that have a distinctive sense of place using writing techniques to help communities to appreciate/understand local heritage and using this to help engage with new developments during and after their planning and construction
South Bank graffiti
www.urbanwords.org.uk/urbanwords/placeforwords1.html
Here's an extract:
"Ask children what they want in their new playground and they might say, oh, some swings over there in the corner, maybe a slide, and a sandpit. Now get a writer to guide them through the process of creating a group poem that asks them what they think play is; what makes them feel safe; and how their dream playground would make them feel, like the organisation Snug and Outdoor do when they start to design new play spaces for children, and you get a totally different picture. A group of children with physical and learning disabilities in Southampton, working with the poet Chris Meade, told Snug and Outdoor that their dream playground is the place that makes you go ahhhhh setting up a real challenge and opportunity for the designers and architects to respond to. By engaging creatively with space and their emotional responses to space, the children were able to get past the play spaces they already had or had already experienced and re-imagine the possibilities of a new space.
Snug and Outdoor used a similar process in a public art project, Hackney Hotlinks, that explored the relationship people living, working or visiting Mare Street in Hackney had with that place and what their aspirations and hopes might be for a regenerated Mare Street. Using writing workshops, spontaneous conversations and a temporary installation of visual and sound projection, the artists were able to get past the negative and the everyday and start really exploring the relationship between people and place. Hattie Coppard, Director of Snug and Outdoor is adamant about the benefits of creative consultation. It’s about exploring imagination, not gripes, she says. It’s about getting people to express something they haven’t imagined yet."
Sarah is now doing further research, funded by Arts Council England, looking at ways of:
* Effectively consulting with communities – helping to give voice to groups of residents who might find conventional consultation techniques hard to handle
* Helping developers, architects and communities think creatively about the spaces they inhabit/want to create
* Finding ways of expressing Heritage and natural ecologies in the creation of new spaces that have a distinctive sense of place using writing techniques to help communities to appreciate/understand local heritage and using this to help engage with new developments during and after their planning and construction
South Bank graffiti
Thursday, June 5, 2008
SNUG & OUTANDABOUT
Hattie is on the play trail this summer as part of a roadshow organised by Robin of Sutcliffe Play, travelling the nation to talk play.
‘Genius Loci’ seminars will address the current issues which challenge and confront play providers today.
The first seminar will be on 11 June in Dublin, hosted by Sugradh, the IPPA (the Early Childhood Organisation) and Allplay. This will be followed by seminars in Belfast (June 12), Wakefield (July 10) and Cardiff (July 18). Autumn dates in London and Edinburgh are to be confirmed.
Managing Director of Sutcliffe Play, Robin Sutcliffe, said: “In Roman mythology a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place, often depicted as a snake. Now it usually refers to a location’s distinctive atmosphere and is the foundation for one of the principles of landscape architecture – that designs should always be adapted to the context in which they are located.
“This should equally be applied to play spaces and forms the background to this series of seminars.”
Hattie will be the first of the day’s speakers, her theme: “Nature is all very well but…”
Hattie will be followed by Noel Farrer, landscape architect, CABE Enabler and Director of Farrer Huxley Associates – a London practice specialising in the development of meaningful, quality spaces for people to enjoy and play. He will look at public realm space and asks “Who needs standards anyway?”
Bernard Spiegal, Principal of PLAYLINK, will then address the issue of consultation with a talk titled “Consultation – stop it, please, stop it!”
The final talk of the morning will by given by Robin Sutcliffe of Sutcliffe Play. He will state his case with “What’s your problem with fixed play equipment?”
The seminars, which cost £50 (€70 for Dublin) will include lunch and a CPD certificate of attendance.
For details on how to book a place email lisad@sutcliffeplay.co.uk or telephone 01977 653200.
‘Genius Loci’ seminars will address the current issues which challenge and confront play providers today.
The first seminar will be on 11 June in Dublin, hosted by Sugradh, the IPPA (the Early Childhood Organisation) and Allplay. This will be followed by seminars in Belfast (June 12), Wakefield (July 10) and Cardiff (July 18). Autumn dates in London and Edinburgh are to be confirmed.
Managing Director of Sutcliffe Play, Robin Sutcliffe, said: “In Roman mythology a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place, often depicted as a snake. Now it usually refers to a location’s distinctive atmosphere and is the foundation for one of the principles of landscape architecture – that designs should always be adapted to the context in which they are located.
“This should equally be applied to play spaces and forms the background to this series of seminars.”
Hattie will be the first of the day’s speakers, her theme: “Nature is all very well but…”
Hattie will be followed by Noel Farrer, landscape architect, CABE Enabler and Director of Farrer Huxley Associates – a London practice specialising in the development of meaningful, quality spaces for people to enjoy and play. He will look at public realm space and asks “Who needs standards anyway?”
Bernard Spiegal, Principal of PLAYLINK, will then address the issue of consultation with a talk titled “Consultation – stop it, please, stop it!”
The final talk of the morning will by given by Robin Sutcliffe of Sutcliffe Play. He will state his case with “What’s your problem with fixed play equipment?”
The seminars, which cost £50 (€70 for Dublin) will include lunch and a CPD certificate of attendance.
For details on how to book a place email lisad@sutcliffeplay.co.uk or telephone 01977 653200.
A Bouncing Bench and Calvinball
The best cartoon strip in the world on organised play - recommended by Bruno Taylor of BigBru designs who also sent us this fantastic picture of his amazing bouncing bench.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Design for Play: Creating Successful Play Spaces
Snug & Outdoor have just received details of this presentation, available now:
A presentation based on the forthcoming publication Design for Play: A guide to creating successful play spaces, by Aileen Shackell, Nicola Butler, Phil Doyle and David Ball, published by Play England and the Department for Children, Families and Schools is now available on the Free Play Network website at:
http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/designforplay
Online Discussion Forum, 16 - 27 June 2008
There will be an opportunity to put your questions direct to the authors of Design for Play in an online discussion forum on designing for play from 16 - 27 June 2008 on the Free Play Network website, http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/discussion/designforplay
Speakers and Workshops
The Free Play Network can provide speakers and workshops on the issues raised in Design for Play.
For more information on Design for Play and other Free Play Network services, please contact:
Nicola Butler
Director
Free Play Network
129 Lancaster Road
Barnet
Herts
EN4 8AJ
020 8440 9276
nbutler@freeplaynetwork.org.uk
www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk
Join the Free Play Network contact lists
We would appreciate your help in disseminating information about the Free Play Network's work. If you care to, please:
* Send this notice to individuals and organisations offering them the opportunity to join the Freeplay Network emailing list. This will help keep them informed about events and developments.
* To subscribe to their email list, go to: http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/join/index.php
A presentation based on the forthcoming publication Design for Play: A guide to creating successful play spaces, by Aileen Shackell, Nicola Butler, Phil Doyle and David Ball, published by Play England and the Department for Children, Families and Schools is now available on the Free Play Network website at:
http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/designforplay
Online Discussion Forum, 16 - 27 June 2008
There will be an opportunity to put your questions direct to the authors of Design for Play in an online discussion forum on designing for play from 16 - 27 June 2008 on the Free Play Network website, http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/discussion/designforplay
Speakers and Workshops
The Free Play Network can provide speakers and workshops on the issues raised in Design for Play.
For more information on Design for Play and other Free Play Network services, please contact:
Nicola Butler
Director
Free Play Network
129 Lancaster Road
Barnet
Herts
EN4 8AJ
020 8440 9276
nbutler@freeplaynetwork.org.uk
www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk
Join the Free Play Network contact lists
We would appreciate your help in disseminating information about the Free Play Network's work. If you care to, please:
* Send this notice to individuals and organisations offering them the opportunity to join the Freeplay Network emailing list. This will help keep them informed about events and developments.
* To subscribe to their email list, go to: http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/join/index.php
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Joke (from year 8 pupil, brum)
Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide.
A: To get to the other slide.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
"WE ARE NOT INTENDING TO HAVE ANY PLAYTIME"
Yesterday Hattie went to the Nuffield Foundation for a presentation of the research undertaken by Professor Peter Blatchford and Dr Ed Baines into the 'social and educational significance of school break times'. Hattie was an advisor to the study.
The research showed that school break times are being reduced in time and number across the country and particularly at secondary level. One extreme example is the new Academy built in Peterborough (Norman Foster designed) which has no playground at all -
"We are not intending to have any playtime. Pupils won't need to let off steam, because they will not be bored" - Headteacher.
"We have taken away an uncontrollable space to prevent bullying and truancy"
- Project manager.
The research shows that breaktimes are overwhelmingly popular with pupils and that secondary school students in particular want longer lunch times - many are only half an hour long. Staff value break times as a space where pupils can get physical exercise and develop important social skills.
Taking away outdoor space and controlling every aspect of the student's environment flies in the face of other government initiatives such as Every Child Matters, Learning Outside the Classoom, and worries about obesity etc.
To find out more, see: The Social and Educational Significance of School Breaktimes by Peter Blatchford and Ed Baines. Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, London.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Places for Spaces
This week we've been running a Places for Spaces workshop for Solent Architecture Centre. Here are a couple of photos showing councillors, council officers, developers from Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth experimenting in Cosham High Street with the help of large foam blocks, carpets and parasols. (this equipment has been developed for Hampshire's Big Landscape Project and is available to any secondary school wanting to experiment with their outdoor spaces.)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Adult's play
In Manchester a playground for the elderly opens.
(Not one of ours but a nice idea).
In London a woman and a cuddly toy shark are seen asleep on the tube.
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