Tina Bruce's 12 Features of Play and My Experiences through Placement

Throughout this blog I will be discussing Tina Bruce’s theory of Play and will link it to the experience I had during my placement. Tina Bruce is known famously for her theory of Free Flow Play, where she discusses 12 features of play that she feels is key to ensuring that a setting is being free flow for the children. She said that ‘walowing in ideas, feelings and relationships plus application of developed competence, mastery and control equals Free-flow play’ (Hutchin, 2012) I believe that her 12 features of play help a setting to provide this opportunity for the children, as I began to see in my placement. Tina Bruce’s 12 features of play can be seen below:

1)      Children use first hand experiences from life;

From what I have learnt and seen throughout this past year I found that a lot of theories link in one way or another. A great example of how this approach would link to another theory about play could be forest schools. Children are taught a lot of their lesson within a forest. This enables the children to get stuck in and explore ‘first hand’ with the environment and the world that we are living within.

My placement was not a forest school; however we did have a fantastic amount of outdoor area ranging from grass area, to concrete ground to an astro turf and even a plant area. I found that despite not using this area so much to teach the school provided many different first hand experiences for the children through the activities that they would set up. I personally carried out many activities where I believe this was evident, for example my Cornflour and Water activity in addition to the Easter Egg Hunt I carried out with the children.

2)      Children make up rules as they play in order to keep control.

Control is something that I found children really enjoyed and felt pride in having. Several children would show this by directing others throughout their games, some would play games where they would be the controller, for example teachers and students, and some would just make up their own rules in a game and ensure that everyone follows them.

I noticed this taking place a lot throughout my placement, however whether it was due to keep control or to feel in control is something that I would argue against this approach. I found that a lot of the children were telling the other children what to do and if they did not listen to them they would get angry. Now from my past experience doing it to keep control would not result in the child getting upset, especially if everyone was playing it safely, therefore this suggests to me that the children were doing it in order to feel superior to the other children and to almost in one sense be the leader of the group.

3)      Children symbolically represent as they play, making and adapting play props.

This feature is something that I have seen evidence of throughout all the placements I have been on. The majority of children will find something that they think could represent an object in real life and use it during their play. A common example of this is bits of Lego or construction materials, the children will come up with all kinds of things that not even us as adults can see.

4)      Children choose to play - they cannot be made to play.

Tina Bruce is right in some way of what she is saying here, however if a teacher was to ask a child to participate in a game the child unless deeply against it would take part. The goal of the teacher would then be to interest the child and get them playing activity, therefore I would have to partially question this feature and argue that is it possible to make a child play and what would it take for that child to strongly argue about not playing?, Because I believe that everyone is some way can be made to do something, however the way in which they do it would vary.

5)      Children rehearse their future in their role play.

This is another feature that I have to question. Despite seeing role play a lot throughout the children's normal day at school, I believe that they are acting out what they are witnessing and being told by others. Children are explorers and as Albert Bandura (1977) states ‘behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning’ we can see that he too believed in children socially learning and acting out what they see. Children act out being cops and robbers, teachers and mothers, now some of this may well be true in the future which is where I do agree with her feature, however not all children will grow up to be teachers and not all be will be cops, therefore this despite being partially true is also partially wrong in my opinion.

Now I believe that the 6^th and 9^th feature can be linked

6)      Children sometimes play alone  & 9) Children have a personal play agenda, which may or may not be shared.

The reason I believe these can be linked is that if the child would like to play with three activities in a certain order and is determined then he may be left alone to do so. Now from my experience this does not seem to affect the child so long as they are able to complete their activities, in my opinion I believe that there is nothing wrong with a child doing so a long as they have fun and it is not consistent as socialization is something that is needed a lot.

7)      Children pretend when they play.

      This feature is something that you will see a lot of while child play. They will pretend to be hurt, pretend to be someone else or even just pretend through their acting. I believe that enabling a child to do this by providing costumes and different sorts of resources so their play can be more realistic will help a child build their confidence. I found that a child in my placement was shy to talk to me, however when she was pretending to be her mummy while cooking in the home corner she was able to talk to me and really show her personality a lot better, therefore I believe that supporting this feature would benefit the children. 

8)      Children play with adults and other children cooperatively in pairs or groups.

This is something I saw a lot of throughout my placement. A lot of the children would play in groups and the majority of the class would approach me at some point of the day asking to play or carry out a certain activity. One thing I did find is that this approach does not apply to all the children. Some of the children preferred to play solitarily and only played in groups when asked to, however as the feature says they would do so cooperatively.

10)   Children are deeply involved and difficult to distract from their deep learning as they wallow in their play and learning.

 One of the children in my placement was carrying out an activity where they were making a giant teddy collage. The young boy stayed at the activity for half of the day and did not move even when he was asked to join others on another activity. This is a prime example of what Tina Bruce meant by this feature and it is something that I totally agree with.

11)   Children try out their most recently acquired skills and competences, as if celebrating what they know.

     If a child has picked up a new skill and is confident about it they will show everyone with confidence and will ensure that everyone is aware of their skill. This is something that I believe is good for the children and is something that I saw several times. A young boy did an observational drawing which the teacher was really pleased with. The boy then went and showed all his friends and asked them if they would like him to show them how he did it. I believe this is fantastic in building the children's confidence and self-esteem.

12)   Children coordinate ideas and feelings and make sense of relationships with their families, friends and cultures

     I have to question this feature as it comes down to the way a person interprets it. I one sense I agree that children try to make sense of the difference between their culture, family and friend, however whether they coordinate their ideas in order to do so or if it is just something that they come to terms with and slowly understand is something that I would question as I have never actually seen a child coordinate their ideas and feelings.

Overall I believe that if the children are provided with the right resources, support and enthusiasm from the setting, in addition to support of these 12 features I believe that the children will turn out positive and confident in addition to showing good progress in meeting the different scale points according to the EYFS Documents.