Professional Development -- Play schema posters

Schema play is how our children learn to make sense of the world.

These posters have been created as a guide in the classroom to:

- What they might look like

- How can we support it

- What are they learning

Also great to support Professional Development in the Early Years to expand educator awareness of Schema's to support child led, play based learning and development.

A schema (also known as a play schema) is like a set of instructions. As adults we use them all the time, and we don’t really notice we’re doing it. Switch on a light or make a sandwich and you are using a schema to do it; a mental model you’ve created through a process of trial and error to find the best and most efficient way of completing your task.

Our schemas aren’t always right. What’s special about them is that they represent the current state of our knowledge. Over time, and as we explore further, we come to realise that there were gaps in our understanding. We can then modify our schema to reflect this new information. I drop a football. It bounces back up. I drop a tennis ball. It bounces back up. I have a schema that balls bounce. But one day I drop a ball of play dough and it doesn’t bounce. I update my schema: balls that spring back into shape after you’ve squeezed them will bounce. Balls that don’t, won’t. Which works until I try dropping a golf ball…