6, August, 2020 | POSITIVE PARENTING

Play should always be first for Children

July 20 th to 24 th was an amazing week for early childhood! Over seventy five thousand participants from over a hundred countries registered for the Play First Global Summit. An array of twenty five brilliant speakers presented their research, experience and passion on the importance of play for young children.

Neuroscientists like Mine Conkbayir,” established researchers like Peter Gray, long time authors like Rae Pica, brilliant educator speakers like Lisa Murphy, Tom Hobson and progressive curriculum designers like Wendy Lee along with each and every speaker were pure elixir for the heart and mind of all attendees.

The common thread that ran through the summit was the belief in and passion for young children!

The goal of the summit was to get a seat at the table for crucial decision making on how and what we require and offer to our young children in the name of early childhood education since often the policy makers and curriculum designers are not attuned to childhood or child development.

Personally, besides being honoured to speak and share my thoughts, I was thrilled to collaborate with so many early childhood researchers and practitioners and become part of a learning community. A community that spoke up to want a better new normal post Covid for our children. A community that promises to continue being the guardians of early childhood!

Sally Haughey, founder of Fairy Dust Teaching( and so much more!) and Tom Hobson pulled off a coup in the way they organised this unbelievably successful and smooth conference in less than three months! The behind the scenes operations ensured EVERY online detail was attended to.

For me, if there has been a silver lining during the Covid pandemic, it was this super brilliant early childhood summit!