The Excellence of Play

Play as a powerful learning and teaching experience remainskey to effective early childhood education. Retaining its popular approach and style, this new edition reflects the contemporary context of early childhood education and care as well emerging research on young children's development.The emphasis remains firmly on demonstrating the excellenceof play and its contribution to children's overall learning and development in the early years, and the role of adults in promoting inspirational playful pedagogies.It offers new coverage on topics such as brain development, gender, babies’ play, cultural diversity and inclusion, children as researchers, new technologies, outdoor play and international dimensions.

Key features include:

A chapter overview giving a brief outline of aims and purpose

Lively and meaningful cameos to help bring the themes andissues to life

Content drawing on the cameos to help link research, theory and practice

Reflective questions to raise awareness of, and reflection on, the issues raised

Useful websites and further readingThis is a must-read book for all students studying early childhood at a range of levels and practitioners who are looking to deepen their understanding of play and playful practices.

Janet Moyles's 'The Excellence of Play' has become a corner-stone of Early Childhood Education and Care and provides evidence that young children learn best by playing, exploring, experimenting - in short having exciting, adventurous, creative experiences which are meaningful and interest them. The ideas and examples in the chapters from Janet and her co-writers (many of them 'new') are a source of utter delight. Please, please someone, make this book compulsory reading for MPs and policy wonks.

Tricia David, Emeritus Professor, Canterbury Christ Church University

'The Excellence of Play' is now in its 4th edition and this is testimony to how thought-provoking an edited collection it continues to be. This much anticipated new edition does not disappoint: there are chapters written by foremost authors in the field and a vast array of perspectives on play are gathered together in one volume. In summary, this book is a valuable contribution to the field of Early Childhood Studies and should be considered essential reading for students and practitioners alike. On reading this book, one is left in no doubt about the primacy of play in young children's lives and the important role of adults in supporting their play.

Dr. Deborah Albon, London Metropolitan University

This book explores play from differing perspectives, which combine to provide a thought-provoking and comprehensive account of its value. The rigorous introduction examines and explains the relevance of the different chapters, written by experts in their fields, placing them in historical, cultural, psycho-social, curricular and pedagogical contexts.

This new edition of a classic text offers encouragement as well as information to all working with young children and their families. It provides grounded evidence for the importance of play, spelling out the complex but crucial contribution it makes to self-regulation, motivation and well-being, which are under threat in current conditions. Readers will be equipped to affirm and disseminate the importance of ensuring that future generations benefit from meaningful play.

Wendy Scott, President TACTYC

Play absorbs children; it fascinates them. It also fascinates and intrigues teachers, researchers and theorists, as the fourth edition of this book demonstrates. Its contributors do justice to the delights, complexities, puzzles and imponderables of play and make a powerful case against the undue "schoolification" of childhood and for the "playification" of schooling.

Colin Richards HMI(retired) Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Cumbria