Nursery World - Lego Foundation's £4m grant for play research

A new research centre dedicated to the role of play in the early years is being established at Cambridge University, thanks to a grant from the Lego Foundation, the toymaker’s charitable arm.

The Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), which has just launched, will initially be working with children from birth to three in local nurseries and health clinics, to develop research about the role of play and how play develops.

Another strand of the research will examine the potential of using play-based approaches within schools.

Dr David Whitebread, PEDAL’s acting director, told Nursery World, ‘One of the motivations for setting up this centre is that there’s a crisis in childhood at the moment and productive play opportunities for children are very curtailed - within their homes, communities and schooling.

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