You will prepare and submit a term paper on An examination of the attitudes of parents towards the impact of play in the Foundation Stage. Your paper should be a minimum of 3500 words in length.

You will prepare and submit a term paper on An examination of the attitudes of parents towards the impact of play in the Foundation Stage. Your paper should be a minimum of 3500 words in length. (Wiltshire, 2002). This paper considers whether parents are aware of the educational importance of play in the foundation stage curriculum. Interviews were used to collect data from parents of children who attended either a nursery, or reception class of a foundation stage setting in one infant school. Results indicated that although parents were aware of the social benefits of play, in some cases they were unaware of the other areas of a child’s development. Findings were organized and analysed according to four themes namely behaviour, educational and spontaneous, play and learning, and the social benefits of play. These were related to current literature in the area of early years education, and recommendations for future practice are also considered.

This enquiry will seek to determine the extent of parents’ awareness and understanding of the educational value of play in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. Furthermore, the enquiry will specifically outline and discuss concerns with how parents of children in an early years setting, understand and value the importance of play in the early years curriculum. In addition, the enquiry will review the academic literature in the area of early year’s education and seek opinions of some regarding the current definitions of play.

As an early year’s specialist, it is important to be aware of the importance of play in the early year’s sector. From personal experience it has been observed that although parents are often very supportive of the play-based curriculum for nursery children, many parents become overly concerned about the lack of reading books and homework when their child reaches reception. Therefore the enquiry will discover how parents believe children benefit from play and will attempt to gain insight into how much parents understand about the value of play.