At Summerhill School we are participants in World Play Day as well as World Read Aloud Day.
These international organisations are encouraging unstructured learning to develop new skills, negotiate with peers, solve potential conflicts and stimulate creativity as well as celebrate the power of reading aloud! We love to offer our students innovative, fun, novel and unstructured learning opportunities. The World is our platform here at Summerhill Nursery, Preparatory School and College
Since both World Play Day and World Read Aloud Day happen in the first week of February annually, we bundled them into one day packed full of fun, creativity and stimulation of an unstructured nature. The school meticulously created packets of play dough and offered these to the students to explore creativity.
World Play Day
In his TEDx lecture, Peter Gray clearly argues the case that today’s kids do not grow up playing and this has negatively impacted them in many ways. It’s time we return the gift of play to this generation.
In an ever changing educational climate, academic norms have taken more and more play away from students and replaced it with structured activities, school work, and digital experiences to the point where they hardly ever “play” at all. Summerhill School has always been a proponent of learning through play and encourages experimentation and investigations to foster learning. On Wednesday, 3rd February 2021 we eagerly embraced the Global School Play Day movement in supporting unstructured playtime for our students. The students were given coloured playdough which was made by our enthusiastic hygiene support staff for their unstructured playtime. Our students had fun playing unrestrained and unhindered with the squishy dough and their smiles and contagious laughter were a testimony to them letting their creativity and imagination take over. Mrs Vanessa Singh – Head of Department Junior Phase
It’s time we return the gift of play to this generation!
World Read Aloud Day
We believe that everyone should have the chance to share stories.
LitWorld founded World Read Aloud Day in 2010 in celebration of the power of reading aloud to create community, to amplify new stories, and to advocate for literacy as a foundational human right. Over the last eleven years, World Read Aloud Day has evolved into a global movement of millions of readers, writers, and listeners from communities all across the world coming together to honor the joy and power of reading and sharing stories, and continue expanding the definition and scope of global literacy.
We believe that everyone should have the chance to share stories!
On Wednesday, 3rd February 2021, Summerhill students and staff took part in the annual World Read Aloud Day. Teachers read the story “Fly, everyone, fly!” by Sihle Nontshokweni to their students.
Everyone listened intently to the story while moulding the play dough they had been given for World Play Day which was also celebrated on this day. Many interesting objects from the story were created in play dough such as buses, airplanes, cakes and even some “Gogos”.
By partaking in World Read Aloud Day, teachers demonstrated to students that reading is invaluable. It provides not only joy as well as learning, but can also build a bond between those who read together.
Candice Pötscher
Head of Senior Phase