A new survey created by researchers from the University of Sheffield and UCL exploring the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on children’s play and wellbeing has launched this week.
The Play Observatory project is inviting children and young people to share their own examples of indoor, outdoor and imaginative play, including digital play from onscreen games to social media. Researchers anticipate collecting drawings, photographs, videos, screenshots and written and audio descriptions of play relating to the pandemic, to gain insight into the rich diversity of young people’s experiences over the past year.
The 15-month project is led by UCL Institute of Education’s (IOE) Professor John Potter (UCL Knowledge Lab) and the team comprises of Dr Kate Cowan and Dr Michelle Cannon (both IOE), Dr Yinka Olusoga, Dr Julia Bishop and Dr Cath Bannister (all University of Sheffield) and Dr Valerio Signorelli (The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL). Folklorist and archives specialist Steve Roud has supported the design of the survey. It is being run in partnership with the British Library, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the V&A Museum of Childhood. The project has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Children can upload their examples to the survey supported by their parents and legal guardians who can also contribute their own observations, as can other adults including teachers and youth group leaders. Examples will be catalogued and contribute to a searchable online collection of examples, and an online exhibition with the V&A. Contributions will ultimately be held in a multi-media archive in UCL and University of Sheffield repositories, with selected material deposited with the British Library. Together, they will form a record of play during this unusual period for future generations.
Project CO-I Dr Yinka Olusoga, a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, and a historian of childhood, play and education, said: “We have been excited to develop an online survey for collecting examples of children’s play, from the children themselves, with the support of their grown-ups. Inspired by the work of Peter and Iona Opie in the second half of the 20th century, we are looking forward to collecting these contributions into a digital archive about everyday play.”
Project PI, Professor John Potter said:
“We would love to hear from children, their parents and carers about how they have been playing during lockdown; adaptations to old games, new ones they’ve made up, by themselves or with families and friends, with others in bubbles at school, outside or inside, onscreen on Zoom or making Tik Tok videos, building in Minecraft or Roblox, anything and everything. We have a hunch that play has been as important as ever in children’s lives and will be even more important as they are able to meet up with each other again. There is widespread concern about the need to catch up but we would like to see this rebalanced to include children’s need to play for their health and wellbeing.
“We would encourage anyone with stories to tell about play during the past year to visit us at play-observatory.com and sign up for our survey. And if you want to talk more with us about this, let us know.”
You can visit the project website and access the survey at: play-observatory.com and follow the project on Twitter at @PlayObservatory