Have you heard the tale about play-based learning, a viral Facebook page and one of Scotland’s most diverse communities? It involves two young teachers in Glasgow, who have gained thousands of followers around the world for their imaginative use of play in the classroom.

The magic happens at Holy Cross Primary in the Govanhill area, which serves a truly multicultural community. Holy Cross has a significant Romanian and Slovakian pupil population, and there are a large number of children with Pakistani heritage, many of whom speak Urdu and Punjabi. Overall, 80 per cent of pupils speak English as an additional language - something that proved challenging for Rebecca Meighan and Claire Scally when they were both teaching P1.

So, what are they doing that has struck such a chord with teachers around the world?

Meighan and Scally quickly realised that before they could push on with reading and writing skills, they needed to first build up their pupils’ English vocabulary. But they didn’t want to simply show pictures - they wanted pupils to be able to “see and touch and feel these objects”. The solution was to enable them to acquire language in a more natural way: to let them play.

“When we got to teaching phonics, initial sounds and word blends, we were finding it really difficult because the children were coming either with little English or no English at all,” explains Scally. “You always start with the letter S - the ‘sss’ sound - but when we were trying to get them to think of words that start with the letter S, they were just looking at us blankly.”

Meighan and Scally decided to change tack. After brainstorming words with the sound they wanted children to learn that week, they set up play activities related to that sound. For instance, with the “V” sound, one activity was to make a volcano erupt (with lava produced by combining vinegar and baking soda). The children were also given the chance to role-play being a vet; one of the suggested activities was taking a pet dog for a vaccination.

The plan achieved the desired result: instead of looking blank when they were asked to give examples of words featuring the sound they were working on, the children were able to reel off a list. And, importantly, they remembered these words because they had been immersed in a world (albeit an imaginary one) where they were relevant.

“We knew that if we gave children the chance to interact with these objects - to do and not just see - they would remember them and gain some more language from that,” explains Meighan.

Meighan and Scally set up The Power of Play Facebook page to collaborate with teachers outside their school (bit.ly/PowerPlayGla). They quickly discovered that teachers across the UK - as well as from Finland, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - were on similar journeys and wanted to introduce more play into their classrooms.

At the time of writing, the page had attracted more than 17,000 followers and 16,000-plus likes. Some of Meighan and Scally’s posts, meanwhile, have attracted hundreds of comments.

Many Facebook commenters ask them where they get their resources from, including the miniature apples decorating their cardboard apple trees, brightly painted numbers with googly eyes and “bones” (dog biscuits) used for Halloween activities.

Adaptable ideas

What they have created is a community of teachers helping each other. The ideas that go down well, they say, are the ones that are relatively easy to do, and which feature resources that can be adapted and used again.

“Things that are straightforward and reusable [are popular, such as] laminated cards for spelling that can be used every week,” says Meighan.

Now, the two teachers are no longer delivering lessons to P1s. As of this school year, they are both teaching composite classes in junior school. Scally has P3-4s and Meighan P4-5s, but they are still playing and still posting on their Facebook page.

Part of the reason for this is that they continue to teach pupils who are new to English. The school has a 10 per cent change in the pupil roll every year: about 50 children leave and 50 join. For approximately half of the new arrivals, Holy Cross Primary will be their first experience of formal education, says headteacher Claire Gray.

Play allows these children to work at their own level and receive support from other pupils - some of whom might speak the same language, says Scally.

However, the main reason for continuing to learn through play is simply that “putting things in a context for any child is beneficial”, as Meighan says (see box, above right).

Maintaining a playful approach to learning as children progress through primary is an idea that is starting to take hold in Scotland. Earlier this year, Tes Scotland reported on an Edinburgh school using such a strategy in P7 (Does play-based learning work beyond early years?”, 21 June 2019). Broughton Primary teacher Charlotte Birse-Stewart decided to take the leap to play-based learning after noticing how “independent with their learning” the P1s were - whereas there was a tendency to keep “bums on seats” during lessons for older children.

Back at Holy Cross, there are no plans to throw out traditional teaching methods. There remains a place for direct teaching, says Gray. Scally points out that some of the experiences and outcomes in Curriculum for Excellence can be delivered only with children sat at desks with jotters. Both agree that there is a balance to be struck.

During my visit, with Halloween rapidly approaching, all the games have a ghoulish twist; in Meighan’s class, “potions lab” and “escape the graveyard” are my favourites. In the potions lab, the pupils are presented with four recipes for shrinking, laughter, invisibility and fire-breathing potions. They have to measure out the right quantities of dyed water - or, as far as they are concerned, snake’s venom, vampire’s blood, zombie’s mucus and rat’s guts.

Laiba in P4 has measured out 55ml of zombie’s mucus using a flask, but needs 11ml of snake’s venom for her laughter potion. There is no measuring spoon for exactly that amount so she needs to work out which two spoons will give her the correct quantity.

In “escape the graveyard”, keys and padlocks are hidden in a cemetery (a large tray topped with oatmeal and strewn with rubber skeletons). The keys have sums written on them and the padlocks numbers. The children must work out the sums to find the lock with the correct solution. Only once they have unlocked all the padlocks can they escape.

At the start, Meighan promises faithfully that every child will get to visit each of the half-a-dozen stations. And any notion that play equates to chaos is quickly dispatched. There is a lot of bustle and chatter, but it is immediately apparent that there are well-established routines.

The station where the children start out is dictated by a lollypop stick with their name on it, drawn at random. The pupils then have six minutes to play, and when their time runs out, they have to tidy up and stand behind their chairs. They do not move to the next station until Meighan tells them to, and when they do, it is a race to see who can get their hands on their heads fastest. Play commences when everyone is in place.

Hamza and Daoud are at the bone-digging station where each bone (dog biscuit) has a letter written on it. The pupils have to challenge each other to spell words, and Hamza and Daoud are locked in a battle trying to outdo each other. Hamza - who is keen to introduce a time limit for Daoud but is overruled - kicks things off with “phantom”, then they are on to “syllable” and “metropolis”. Hamza says he enjoys these activities because it’s “an easier way to learn”.

In Scally’s class, Saad creates a huge sum at the “ghost town” where the pupils have to link up the ghosts (white plastic cups turned upside down with faces drawn on the front and numbers or symbols written on the base), by adding, dividing or multiplying.

Some children, though, choose the easiest options and this is where the teacher comes in: their role is to act as facilitator, helping children who are struggling, but also making sure no one is coasting.

The children also keep an eye on each other. In Scally’s class, when a member of Dishant’s group starts to play with the zombie guts (play dough) instead of using it to spell words, he is quick to tell them: “We are not making play dough - we are learning.”

What children learn from working in this way clearly goes beyond the literacy and numeracy skills the games are designed to develop. They are continually negotiating with each other, sharing materials, deciding who will start and working together to establish whether an answer is right or wrong. And they are aware of this. P4 pupil Wojciech tells me: “You don’t only learn, but you as well learn how to turn-take and how to share and help others.”

Even this doesn’t cover it as far as Meighan and Scally are concerned. They say pupils’ talking and listening skills improve, as well as their confidence and relationships.

It’s also about having fun. Some of the children here do not get much opportunity to play - 81 per cent live in some of the most deprived postcodes in the country. Their families often don’t have the resources for them to do things like this at home, according to Gray. The teachers say that, when the children come in on a Monday, the only news some have to share about their weekend is that they went to the supermarket.

Meighan recalls trying to instigate a piece of writing about the beach. She quickly realised that while some of the pupils in her class had been on holiday, many had never felt the sand between their toes. That led to teachers bringing in sand and shells for the children to play with. “They had no idea wet sand in a bucket could make a castle,” says Scally. “Watching that [realisation during play] just fills you with joy.”

Now, Gray has introduced a budget for each year group to take pupils on trips that will get them out of their local area.

“Experience and language goes hand in hand,” says Meighan. “As soon as you have the experience, you then learn the language around that, whereas if you have not had the experience, then you are limited.”

But the benefit of being a child is that your imagination can take you to places you might not otherwise have access to - which is exactly what Meighan and Scally are relying on.

Increasing the complexity

The teachers could take their approach even further, suggests Aline-Wendy Dunlop, an expert in early years and play at the University of Strathclyde. She is full of praise for the ideas being shared but suggests that more complex play - where children generate ideas and don’t rely as much on teachers presenting activities - can be even more powerful.

“The new focus on play and playful pedagogies is very welcome - there is potential for children to learn in very motivating ways when their interests are recognised and followed up with creative, attractive and enticing activities,” Dunlop says. “The Facebook group is full of terrific examples.

“The one element that is less visible is children’s self-initiated play - this may occur in a range of areas, for example, dramatic play; play with blocks, with pens and paper available; or loose parts play. Each of these involve negotiation with others and may lead to increasing self-regulation, which is part of emotional wellbeing and the capacity to engage with peers.”

As it is, some primary teachers wonder how the pair have the time to support even this level of play. One Facebook commenter says that she comes in at 8am every morning to get organised but still can’t set up the kind of activities Meighan and Scally talk about. In fact, she adds, once her pupils arrive in the classroom, she can barely find the time to go to the toilet.

Meighan and Scally agree their approach is work-intensive, which is why they now limit it to twice per week: once for activities themed around numeracy and once for literacy. Meighan also says that while she sometimes sets up the activities in the morning, she also does it before she goes home in the evening. She adds that it helps to establish routines and get the children used to tidying up - and she usually has support from a classroom assistant.

Ultimately, what makes all the effort worthwhile for Meighan is “the excitement you get from the children”.

Scally adds: “It’s seeing their faces and how engaged they are. There are times when you stand back and you look at everybody, and everybody is engaged. Everyone is talking to each other and doing exactly what they should be doing, and you are not actually having to do very much other than facilitating. And you think, ‘That’s why I’m doing it - because it works’.”

Emma Seith is a reporter for Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article originally appeared in the 6 December 2019 issue under the headline “Play to pupils’ strengths”