Early childhood education it is therefore a very important element in a child's life and offer the opportunity to detect and respond to children’s individual needs and build their strengths. A high-quality preschool service can give a fair start to all children, especially those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. The project partners recognize an essential role in pre-primary education to the play as is the major modality to stimulate the mental and physical capacity of children and to facilitate their adaptation to the requirements of formal education. Play can have a large impact on development and in particularly in social development, language skills and cognitive development. The partnership, consisting of 8 organisations from 5 EU countries(Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Spain and Belgium), recognize the need to improve teachers skills, considering the fact that among preschool staffs, in many EU educational systems, assistant can be employed without an initial qualification in ECEC. For this reason, this project meets the need of training preschool staffs and offering them a tool for evaluating the quality of the preschool services, making sure to give due importance to the play in children’s learning. In the light of 3 years project,the general objective of the project is to increase quality in early childhood education and care through the development of new knowledge on teaching approaches based on the role of play The specific objectives are: 1. To strengthen the skills of pre-school teachers through innovative play-based learning methodology 2. To improve the quality of preschool services introducing transnational peer review- based processes in relation to learning methods The main expected results will be: the developed knowledge and improved competencies related to the different methodologies promoting play-based learning, the new teaching methodology and materials delivered focused on the central role of play, the improved European collaboration among peers in preschools and the deliver of tools for peer review-based processes The project activities include 6 transnational project meetings and 1 training seminar aimed at supporting the production of the main product of the project: the training methodology on play based learning and aimed at presenting the peer review tool to assess preschool services. Such products will be disseminated in the four countries of the partnership towards the key target groups of the project: Pre-schools managers and coordinators, municipal decision-makers, pre-school teachers, researchers and Professionals from other fields. The partnership consists of 3 local authorities and respective pre-schools (SE,IT, DK), a transnational network of local and regional authorities(IT) a University(SE), a University College (DK) and 2 preschools (BE, SP).
The project PLAYING was committed to: 1. To strengthen the skills of pre-school teachers 2. To improve the quality of preschools introducing transnational peer review- based processes To achieve the first objective, the group have developed a comprehensive methodology for pre-school teachers based on the direct experience of the schools involved, that can be replicated by other preschools. Reading about the process of the preschools, other teachers can gain a deeper understanding of how play-based learning can enhance children's development. To address the second objective, PLAYING has introduced transnational peer reviews in relation to learning methods. This peer review process allowed teachers to exchange ideas, share best practices, learn from the experiences of others, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and striving to enhance the teaching practices. PLAYING project achieved significant outcomes in terms of strengthening the skills of pre-school teachers and improving the quality of preschool services as teachers have gained new knowledge and practical strategies for incorporating play-based learning into their classrooms, leading to more engaging and effective educational experiences for children.
The project partners apply for the PLAYING project with the intention of increasing the quality of pre-school services by learning, discussing and testing at a transnational level, play based learning methodologies. The need the project addressed was to provide in service trainings to preschool teachers and educators, aimed at expanding knowledge and skills already acquired by ECEC practitioners. At the basis of the shared needs there was also the consideration that in many EU educational systems part of the preschool staff can be employed without and initial qualification in ECEC. The project partners recognized an essential role to the play in preschool, as the instrument through which stimulate in a child learning, language development and social and cognitive development. For this reason, this project met the need of training preschool staff focusing on play based learning and in particular on symbolic play and how the different roles assumed by the teacher and the change of roles themselves during the play activity favor interaction between children, everyone's participation, but also how it can stimulate their language and stimulate learning.