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An alert and call for action – a new Standard threat to play provision
This is an alert. An alert to all those – across Europe and wider – where European play equipment and surfacing standards are held, or will be held, to apply. A new Standard is being proposed, one that will further undermine play provision. Proposed change The particular proposed change I focus on here (there are… Continue reading
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There is a link, I promise: Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and play
I accept that at first blush it might seem odd to link words such as play, children, teenagers, risk-taking to the international trade talks currently being conducted between the European Union and the United States of America. But there is a link, and it is potentially a threatening one. The talks, known as the Transatlantic… Continue reading
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Follow-up: copy of email from anti-sats test strike campaign – thought you might like to know
Wow what a 24 hours! KS1 SPaG cancelled, national media outlets getting in touch with us to speak to YOU our lovely supporters up and down the country about the incredible #KidsStrike3rdMay events YOU are organising, mentioned in the New Day newspaper and on BBC Radio 4 breakfast news! We also hit the 10,000 likers mark… Continue reading
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Parental strike against school testing – hint, intimation, or flash in the pan?
Straw in the wind? Harbinger? Hint or intimation? Dunno. Snowball in hell? Impossible odds? Flash in the pan? Dunno. Still, worth noting that at the time of writing 24,412 parents (or people claiming to be parents) have signed an online petition supporting a strike – yes, worth reading that again: a STRIKE – that will… Continue reading
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Review of Adrian Voce’s book ‘Policy for Play: Responding to children’s forgotten right’
I was invited by the International Journal of Play to write a review of Adrian Voce’s ‘Policy for Play: Responding to children’s forgotten right’. This is the original manuscript of the review published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Play on 15 March 2016 available online http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21594937.2016.1146492 Policy for Play is at once… Continue reading
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Reflection on court finding no negligence in injury at play claim
Attention has rightly been drawn to a recent British Columbia (Canada) Supreme Court Judgment that, whilst not serving as precedent in other jurisdictions, is both interesting and useful. You can read the judgment here. In brief, the civil law case – brought under British Columbia Occupiers Liability Act 1996 – focuses on a negligence claim… Continue reading
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Dehli thought
Delhi – hot, colourful, polluted, noisy, crowded. Wonderful in it own particular way. The roads, traffic seething: cars, three-wheeled autos, pedal rickshaws, buses – some new(ish), some distinctly rickety. Taxis, swarms of bicycles, motorbikes, some seemingly transporting entire families. And people, all ages – that’s ‘all’ ages – crossing the turbulent traffic sea as the… Continue reading
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From values to counting: the apoliticisation of play (and much else)
One way of characterising the play sector, if indeed it constitutes a sector, is that it is apolitical and dependent, those two qualities interacting and exacerbating each other. By apolitical, I mean that it has no obvious popular or voter support, nor is much attention directed towards securing it. Rather, the ‘sector’ concentrates its efforts… Continue reading
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‘Slummy mummies’ – the overreach of schools
For the past couple of days the newspapers have been buzzing with a story summed up in this Daily Telegraph headline: ‘Head teacher tells parents to stop wearing pyjamas on school run’ The Daily Mail, rather more pointedly, talked about an ‘unrepentant slummy mummy’, referring to a mother who responded to the Headteacher’s letter by… Continue reading
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For its own sake – an end of year mull (of the non-alcoholic sort)
Looking back over the past, say, thirty years, future historians might think it distinctly queer that we have spent so much effort and time in promoting a view of play that is somewhat to the side of what we value, what we believe: that is, the non-instrumental value of play. But who are ‘we’? ‘We’… Continue reading
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 