Play
Spaces Shaped by Children
Our Vision
To empower children to shape their own play environments through meaningful consultation, design, and collaboration with professionals.
To embed play as a strategic priority across the federation, ensuring it is recognised as essential infrastructure supported by school leadership and governance.
To provide a diverse range of play opportunities - including epistemic, ludic and rule-based play - that promote curiosity, creativity and cooperation.
To connect our play-based practice with local, national and global networks, ensuring that our provision is resilient and sustainable.
What We Do
Child-Led Design
At Halcyon, we believe that play is not a passive experience but an active, creative and communal process. Our play spaces are not simply provided - they are co-created. Pupils take the lead in shaping the environments in which they play, engaging in consultation, planning and even construction, supported by skilled professionals. The process fosters ownership and aspiration.
Holistic Development
We are committed to supporting the full spectrum of children's play needs, recognising that different types of play contribute to different areas of growth. Our environments are intentionally designed to nurture epistemic play, which enables children to explore, experiment and make sense of the world around them. Alongside this, we create rich opportunities for ludic play: the joyful, imaginative scenarios that help children express themselves, build narrative thinking and develop emotional intelligence. We also make sure to provide spaces for games with rules, so that children can practise negotiation, cooperation and fair play. Together these modes form a holistic and developmentally essential experience for the children of Halcyon.