Play diversity and student agency in the redevelopment of a school playspace

Abstract

The role of unstructured nature-based play in children’s wellbeing, health and learning is a significant focus in research into child development and is increasingly a concern for schools and early childhood settings. There is a groundswell of interest in redesigning children’s outdoor playspaces to better support diverse, nature-based play experiences. Additionally, broad interest in promoting children’s rights and perspectives in matters that concern them has stimulated efforts to involve children in this redesign. This paper reports a case study of a playspace redevelopment project in an Australian primary school, aiming to support greater play diversity in the school grounds. The redevelopment project was led by a teacher who actively involved students in designing and building the space. We consider the extent to which the children were able to define an institutionalised playspace, discussing the complexity of child agency as it relates to the curricularisation and regulation of learning and play. Our analysis suggests the children’s engagements with the playspace were complex and multiform, involving both their agentic definition and inhabitation of the space and their interpellation into adult worlds. Implications are identified for practitioners and researchers interested in child agency and voice in outdoor school playspace redesign.