Ingredients of my Play Based Classroom

My teacher inquiry last year was around PBL and within that I wanted to think about the crucial ingredients that made my programme work.  I think that often teachers think (as I did) that creating a play based environment means throwing the baby out with the bath water.  In fact this couldn't be further from the truth...I am teaching much smarter than I ever have and my PBL environment still includes everything it always did....children are not missing anything, in fact I see that they are gaining so much!

I have created a mind map here, not sure how it will come up, but you should be able to zoom

This is just my thinking and there could be a lot more that I have missed, but I am going to use it as a starting point for my planning this year.

A lot of people as about planning...the reality is I do have a direction and there is a method in the madness, but to be honest my planning is very skeleton and most of the important planning happens day to day and moment to moment.  I would love schools to start trusting teachers and their ability to notice and adjust...not to have to document each little plan and to have to prove what they are doing and that it is working.

My wish is that the happiness and success of children on an individual level would hold more weight than the constant and life sapping assessments that usually only prove what you already knew.

I am in an incredibly lucky position...being Principal with a fabulous BOT I have the opportunity to provide this trust...I just wish more teachers were in this position.

I have put together a short book based on these ingredients which can be purchased here for $8.