Nursery World - Inclusion: outdoor play

In a purpose-built playground, disabled children are active learners rather than passive observers, writes Crispin Andrews explains.

Put a very young child with severe physical or learning impairments in a traditional style playground and it is likely they won't get very much out of it. There will be hardly anything to engage them, not a lot that they can access and very little the child can learn from. To them this sort of playground is nothing more than a big empty space and an even bigger waste of time.

Design an environment within which they feel comfortable, inspired and able to take part, however, and children with disabilities can, just like anyone else, learn about themselves and how to interact with each other and the world around them. In fact, the new purpose-built early years playground at Chadsgrove Special School in Worcestershire is proving to be a great success in facilitating exactly this sort of learning.

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