The power of play × the pedagogy of playDale Sidebottom & Claire Bartlett · Early Learning to Year 6
Your school's next play makers are already in your classrooms.
Play Makers brings learning through play into your school, led by two people with complementary strengths and one shared belief: Dale brings the power of play; Claire brings the pedagogy behind it. Choose a professional learning day, a term of support or a longer partnership. We'll shape the focus around your school's children, educators and goals.
Mossgiel Park Primary SchoolClyde Creek Primary SchoolPrecious Cargo Woodville ParkMayfield Early LearningThe Geelong CollegeBrauer CollegePresbyterian Ladies' CollegeSt Pats CollegeSt George Girls High SchoolOuyen P-12 CollegeTiwi Islands SchoolImmanuel Lutheran CollegeNIST International School, BangkokSingapore American SchoolUWC East Campus SingaporeUWC South East AsiaShanghai American SchoolYokohama International SchoolSeoul Foreign SchoolDyatmika International SchoolAmerican Embassy School, New DelhiMossgiel Park Primary SchoolClyde Creek Primary SchoolPrecious Cargo Woodville ParkMayfield Early LearningThe Geelong CollegeBrauer CollegePresbyterian Ladies' CollegeSt Pats CollegeSt George Girls High SchoolOuyen P-12 CollegeTiwi Islands SchoolImmanuel Lutheran CollegeNIST International School, BangkokSingapore American SchoolUWC East Campus SingaporeUWC South East AsiaShanghai American SchoolYokohama International SchoolSeoul Foreign SchoolDyatmika International SchoolAmerican Embassy School, New Delhi
Mossgiel Park Primary School
Clyde Creek Primary School
Precious Cargo Woodville Park
Mayfield Early Learning
The Geelong College
Brauer College
Presbyterian Ladies' College
St Pats College
St George Girls High School
Ouyen P-12 College
Tiwi Islands School
Immanuel Lutheran College
NIST International School, Bangkok
Singapore American School
UWC East Campus Singapore
UWC South East Asia
Shanghai American School
Yokohama International School
Seoul Foreign School
Dyatmika International School
American Embassy School, New Delhi
The idea
Play is not the reward for the learning. It is the vehicle for it. Dale brings the power of play, Claire the pedagogy.
The model
See the learning. Design for it. Extend it. Evidence it. Learned once, used in every classroom.
Who it is for
Early childhood educators, primary teachers, pedagogical leaders and school leaders. Early Learning to Year 6.
The ask
A day, a term, a year, or a project built for you. Programs from $7,999.
We know children learn through play. Can we point to where the learning is?
Play has been pushed to the edges of the day and argued for with feelings rather than evidence. Play Makers gives teachers the eye to see the learning, the tools to design for it, and the language to make the case for it. It makes learning through play intentional, visible and defensible, in your school, with the grounds and the timetable you actually have.
Ask any of us whether play matters and the answer comes without pausing. Ask us to point to the literacy in the last twenty minutes of it, in the moment, out loud, and it gets harder. Not because the learning was not there, and not because the practice is lacking. Naming it is a skill of its own, and few of us were ever given the time or the tools to build it. That is why play is often the first thing to go when the timetable tightens, and why it can be hard to make the case for it to a parent, a principal or a review panel.
Play Makers starts from the thoughtful work already happening in your classrooms and builds on it. It teaches the observation skill that makes the learning visible, the planning skill that makes it intentional, and the documentation habit that lets you show it. Rigour and play stop being a trade-off once you can evidence both.
“There are plenty of programs that will convince your staff play matters. There are very few that will teach them to find the curriculum in it on a Tuesday afternoon.
Where teachers start
Knowing that play matters. Seeing the learning in it. Wanting the language and the tools to show it.
→
Where they finish
Designing for play intentionally. Recognising the learning inside it. Extending it with the right move at the right moment. Evidencing it to a principal, a parent and a moderation panel.
Play is not the reward for the learning. It is the vehicle for it.
A School of Play professional learning day · Victoria
Who you learn from
Three practitioners. Not three keynotes.
Every one of them has run a room of children on a Tuesday. That is the whole qualification, and it is the reason the days feel like teaching rather than being presented at.
The pedagogy of playProgram partner
Claire Bartlett
Head of School, HEI Schools Mauritius · Founding Principal, Woodline Primary, 2021–2025
Claire has led play-based learning in three very different schools. More than twelve years at The Geelong College. Then five years as Founding Principal of Woodline Primary, the twenty-acre farm school in the Geelong hinterland on Wadawurrung Country that she opened in 2021 and took through VRQA registration. Now Head of School at HEI Schools Mauritius, built on the Finnish educational model. The range is the point: the same principles travelled from a large independent school to a farm to an island, which is why she can say, without flinching, that they will work in yours. She can also answer the compliance question as fluently as the philosophy one, which is rare and is exactly what principals need to hear. On Play Makers she brings the pedagogy behind it: what makes learning through play intentional, visible and defensible.
The power of play
Dale Sidebottom
Founding Director, The School of Play · Director, The Better Us Project
Dale has spent twenty years using play to build connected classrooms, staffrooms and schools, first as a teacher who won the first five minutes of every lesson with a game, then as the founder of ClassBreak, the equipment-free game library now used by schools across Australia, the UK and the US. He is the Founding Director of The School of Play and, with Paul, a Director of The Better Us Project, the digital ecosystem that carries the work into schools, families and workplaces every day. A TEDx speaker, the author of All Work No Play and the host of Energetic Radio, he has taken the power of play into more than 600 schools and 25 countries, and into rooms of two hundred educators who came to sit and ended up on their feet. On Play Makers he brings the power of play: the energy, movement and connection that make a room ready to learn, and the proof, from two decades of classrooms, that a school built on play is a school people want to be in.
Culture and belonging
Paul Campbell
Director, The School of Play · Director, The Better Us Project
Paul is a Director of The School of Play and of The Better Us Project, the digital ecosystem behind it. Before that came more than twenty years in education, from the classroom into Assistant Principal roles built around wellbeing and positive education, so he has sat in the leadership meetings where play gets defended or quietly cut, and he knows what it takes to win them. Outside schools he has worked in player welfare with professional athletes and clubs, most recently at the Collingwood Football Club, where the questions are the ones a staffroom asks: how do you keep people connected, regulated and performing under pressure? On Play Makers he holds the culture and belonging side of the work: the conditions a room needs before any of the pedagogy can land, and the language a leadership team needs to back it.
In their words
“She truly walked the walk.
DN
Danae Napier
Deputy Principal
I had the privilege of attending a number of professional learning facilitated by Claire during her time as the founding Principal of Woodline Primary School. She brought the school’s Reggio Emilia–inspired philosophy and play-based pedagogy vividly to life, not simply through what she shared, but through the way she led. She truly walked the walk.
Claire's belief in the capable child and the transformative power of play was evident throughout the school. She understood and showed us that deep learning flourishes when the right conditions are intentionally cultivated: trusting relationships, thoughtfully designed environments, responsive rhythms and genuine opportunities for curiosity, agency and connection. Claire had created a culture in which students, staff and families felt known, valued and empowered to contribute. Her relationships with the community were authentic partnerships, grounded in mutual trust. As a present and visible leader, she embodied the culture she sought to cultivate.
Claire is a deeply knowledgeable, genuine and inspiring leader who lives and breathes her educational philosophy. She takes the time to know people, listen closely and offer meaningful support and guidance at their point of need. Her leadership invites others to reflect, grow and reimagine what is possible for children and their learning.
“If you have the opportunity to learn from Claire, take it.
MH
Marj Hartmann
Founder, High Trees Primary
Claire has an extraordinary ability to help educators see learning through a different lens. She doesn't simply tell us that play is important, she helps us to understand the rich and complex learning that is happening within it, and the vital role of the educator in knowing when to observe, when to wonder, when to gently extend, and when to simply get out of the way and let the magic happen organically.
What makes Claire such an exceptional presenter is her ability to bring together a deep understanding of pedagogy with years of lived experience. She makes the theory meaningful, practical, and immediately applicable, sharing real examples with an openness and generosity which leaves you not only understanding more, but passionately wanting to do better.
If you have the opportunity to learn from Claire, take it. You will leave inspired by her rare ability to transform and extend your understanding of the power of play, and how intrinsic it is to deep and lasting education.
What a day feels like
You will play first. Then take it apart.
None of this is delivered from a lectern. Every session is run the way it asks you to teach: the room is up within five minutes, and the pedagogy is pulled out of what just happened, not read off a slide. We model the approach. We do not talk at you about it.
Connection before contentClaire, reframing what a classroom can beThe pedagogy of play, in personDale and Paul, and a hall on its feetThen the debrief: where was the learning?Every provocation is one you can run on MondayPartner games, no equipmentStaff who have just played togetherMovement is built into every hour
One
idea. Two lenses. Any scale your school needs.
Play Makers starts from a bigger question than “how do we fit play in?”. What would school look like if play was not an activity added to the day, but one of the ways children, teachers and leaders experience it? Dale has spent twenty years on the power of play: what it does to a child, a class and a staffroom. Claire has spent hers on the pedagogy: where the learning is, and how to design for it. Each is stronger alongside the other. Play Makers puts both in the same room for as long as your school needs: a day, a term, a year, a project.
The power of play
Dale & Paul
Wellbeing, belonging, regulation
Movement through the day
Classroom culture
Two La Trobe studies
The pedagogy of play
Claire Bartlett
Where the curriculum hides
Educators as co-constructors, not transmitters
Environment as third teacher
Evidence that survives moderation
The Play Makers model
One model. Learned once, used at any scale.
There is a progression underneath this program: see the learning, document it, understand your role in it, design the conditions for it, design curriculum through it, then assess and evidence it. Four moves carry that progression through every stage, every challenge and every page of the Journal. Teachers learn them on day one, practise them with real children between sessions, and take them back into their school as a shared language.
01
See
the learning inside the play, and name it against the curriculum you are accountable for.
02
Design
for it on purpose: the provocation, the materials, the time, the conditions.
03
Extend
it with the right educator move at the right moment, and know when the right move is none.
04
Evidence
it so the learning survives a moderation meeting, a parent conversation and a review panel.
Built forEarly childhood educatorsPrimary teachersPedagogical leadersSchool leadersEarly Learning to Year 6
Tool 01 · The Observation Lens
Seven questions to hold while children play.
This is what “seeing the learning” actually means in practice. Teachers learn the lens on day one, use it in every implementation challenge, and it becomes the first page of every observation in the Journal.
1What are the children doing?
2What are they thinking?
3Where is the learning, and where is the curriculum?
4What dispositions and capabilities are visible?
5What is the environment contributing?
6What is my role right now?
7What could happen next?
Ways in
A day. A term. A year. Or a project built for you.
The model and the progression are the same at every scale. What changes is how deep it goes. Most schools begin with a day, see what it does to a staffroom, and then decide, and we will never talk you out of that. Every option below is a starting point; all of them are shaped to you.
01The taster
Half day · The Power of Play, with a pedagogy lens
Whole staff, any size. Runs in a staffroom, a hall or a conference room, on-site or as part of an existing PD day.
Dale opens with the keynote: why play is not the reward for the learning, it is the vehicle for it.
One of Claire’s provocations, run live. Your staff play it, then take it apart together.
The observation lens in miniature: where was the literacy, the numeracy, the thinking?
Close: every teacher names one thing they will change in the next fortnight.
02Start here
One day · Where Is the Learning?
Early childhood educators, F–6 teachers and ES staff. 30–80 people, at your school, your centre or in an open program with other schools.
Morning: 45 minutes of connection and movement, so the room feels “connection before content” rather than hearing about it.
Mid-morning: Claire runs rich play provocations. You play, then unpack where the literacy, numeracy, science and thinking actually were.
Afternoon: the role of the educator: observe, question, scaffold, provoke, step back. Plus an environment walk-through of your own space if we are on-site.
Close: every participant redesigns one existing lesson. You leave with a plan, not a binder.
03One term
One term · One stage, run properly
A year level, a team or a whole small staff. One full day together, one implementation challenge with real children, a Play Pod and the Journal, then a half day to bring it back.
A full day on one stage of the progression, chosen with you: usually Where Is the Learning?
A challenge you run in your own classrooms over the following weeks, with the Observation Lens.
The pod meets between, so nobody goes back to the staffroom alone.
A half day to unpack what the children did, what it evidenced, and what comes next.
04The full progression
A year · Play Makers, in full
The deepest version: all four stages, one a term, with a challenge between each, a Play Pod, the Journal, the Showcase and three platforms.
Four full days across the year, one per stage, from seeing the learning to evidencing it.
An implementation challenge between each, run with real children, documented in the Journal.
Prep to staffroom, one language. Bundled with Game Changers for leaders and Student Agency for students if you want the whole school on it.
05Built for you
A project · Designed around your school
A whole-school project on one space or one unit. A network program across several schools. A leadership strand. Family workshops. Something we have not built yet.
Tell us the setting, the stages, the team and what you are trying to shift.
Claire, Dale and Paul design it around the same model and the same progression.
A proposal within the week, one document, one price.
The progression
Four stages that change what you notice.
Every Play Makers program moves through the same four stages, whether they run one a term across a year or are compressed into a single day. Each answers a bigger question than the last, and each moves the model on: from seeing the learning, to designing for it, to extending it, to evidencing it.
01
The progression · Stage One · Dale & Paul with Claire
Connection Before Content
“What do my learners need to feel before they can learn?”
Stage One · Connection Before Content
The model · See
Nothing else on this page works if a child does not feel safe in the room. Every program opens with the conditions for learning rather than the content of it: belonging, regulation, restorative practice, and the relationships that make risk-taking possible. You will not be told this. You will feel it, because the morning runs on the same principles it is teaching. This is also where you receive your Play Maker Journal and meet your Play Pod: the teachers who walk the program with you.
You will leave able to
Read your own room: who feels safe, seen, heard and valued in it, and who does not
Build the regulation and connection rituals that make a class ready to learn
Understand restorative practice as a daily pedagogy, not an incident response
Leave with one ritual you will run every day
Implementation challenge
The Belonging Audit
Map who feels safe, seen, heard and valued in your room, then change one ritual to shift it. Bring the before and after to the next stage.
Wolf Logic · Ground Yourself · Build Belonging
02
The progression · Stage Two · Claire Bartlett
Where Is the Learning?
“What is actually happening when children play?”
Stage Two · Where Is the Learning?
The model · See → Design
The heart of the program, and the stage that answers the objection every teacher has heard. You will play properly, in the rich provocations Claire has run in three very different schools, and then you will pull them apart. Where is the literacy in that? The numeracy? The scientific thinking, the collaboration, the critical reasoning? By the end of the day you can look at a group of children on the floor with a pile of blocks and name the curriculum in the room. This stage is about seeing and documenting what is already there. Stage Four is about designing for it on purpose.
You will leave able to
Name the learning in play, out loud, against the curriculum you are accountable for
Use the observation lens: what to watch for, what to write down, what it evidences
Move between the five educator roles: observe, question, scaffold, provoke, step back. Claire calls it being a co-constructor of knowledge, not a transmitter of it
Know when to intervene and, harder, when not to
Implementation challenge
The Lesson Redesign
Take one lesson you already teach and move it from activity to intentional learning. Document what the children did and what it evidenced.
Wolf Logic · Spark Curiosity
03
The progression · Stage Three · Claire with Paul
Creating the Conditions for Learning
“What conditions let play, and the learning inside it, flourish?”
Stage Three · Creating the Conditions for Learning
The model · Design → Extend
Play does not flourish because a teacher wants it to. It flourishes when the conditions are right, and most of those conditions are set before a child walks in: the time you protect for it, the materials you put out, the routines that open or close it, the relationships in the room, and the role you decide to play once it starts. This stage takes each of those apart, indoors and out. Woodline had twenty acres; Claire’s other schools had a courtyard and a corridor, and the principles held. You do not need a farm. You need to know what your space, your timetable and your presence are quietly telling children to do, and then change one thing at a time.
You will leave able to
Audit the conditions in your room: time, materials, routines, relationships, space, and your own role
Design an environment, indoors and out, with the budget and grounds you actually have
Choose the educator move that extends the play rather than ends it: observe, question, scaffold, provoke, step back
Bring families and community in as co-teachers rather than an audience
Implementation challenge
The Conditions Experiment
Change one condition, the time, the materials, a routine or the space, and run the same play twice. Capture what the children did differently and what that evidenced.
Wolf Logic · Align the Collective
04
The progression · Stage Four · Claire & Dale · plus the Showcase
Curriculum Through Play
“Can I hold rigour and play in the same hand?”
Stage Four · Curriculum Through Play
The model · Extend → Evidence
The progression closes where the doubt lives. Stage Two taught you to see the learning in play. This is where you learn to design for it: planning, evidence, standards mapping and, above all, child agency, because a unit designed through play without the children’s voice in it is just a nicer worksheet. Then every participant presents their Play Maker Project at the Showcase: a unit, a space or a whole-class shift, with the before and after. Invite your principal. That is the point of it. In a year-long program this is Term 4. In a shorter one, it is the last afternoon.
You will leave able to
Plan a full unit through play, mapped to the curriculum you report against
Assess and evidence learning in play so it survives a moderation meeting
Answer the rigour question with artefacts, not adjectives
Design for child agency and voice, so the play stays theirs and the learning stays yours to evidence
Present your Play Maker Project and leave with a portfolio of your practice
Implementation challenge
The Play Maker Project
A unit, a space or a whole-class shift, presented at the Showcase in front of your pod and your leaders.
Wolf Logic · Move What Matters
What holds it together
The sessions are days. The practice is what travels.
Teachers do not change practice because they attended a workshop. They change because somebody is expecting them at the next one, and because they tried something with real children in between.
Your Play Pod
Four or five teachers from other schools, matched by stage rather than postcode. A private channel and a virtual meeting between stages. Teachers do not change because they attended a day; they change because someone is expecting them at the next one.
The Play Maker Journal
Field notes, observation evidence, before-and-after lesson plans. Handed to you on day one and looking nothing like it by the end, when it has quietly become a portfolio of your practice.
Monthly dispatch
One play provocation and one pedagogy prompt a month, plus a short "here is what I would notice in this room" video from Claire. Ten minutes, not homework.
Three platforms
The Academy (including a new Module 6: Learning Through Play, co-written with Claire), ClassBreak, and BetterUs Schools. Included with every program of a term or more, for every participant.
Evidence, measured
A pulse at the start, middle and end: teacher confidence with play-based pedagogy, plus student engagement and agency. The first School of Play program to measure learning outcomes and not only wellbeing.
No farm required
Claire has run this in a large independent school, on a twenty-acre farm and in an international school on the Finnish model. The pedagogy travelled every time. Whatever your grounds, budget or timetable, the program is built for the school you actually have.
The proof point
No farm required. The learning is in the play, not the postcode.
Claire has run this pedagogy in three schools that could not be more different: a large independent school in Geelong, a twenty-acre farm school she founded on Wadawurrung Country, and an international school in Mauritius built on the Finnish model. The grounds changed every time. The learning did not.
Which answers the objection before it is raised. When teachers see a farm school they say “of course it works there”. Play Makers is built for the courtyard, the oval, the strip of grass by the carpark and the Year 4 room with the furniture you already have. If you know where the learning is, you can bring the play anywhere.
Every other program asks you to imagine it working. Claire has watched it work in a big school, on a farm and on an island. The variable was never the grounds.
3
very different schools, one pedagogy
12+
years at The Geelong College
VRQA
registration, for the school she founded
EL–6
Early Learning to Year 6, across three educational settings
Pedagogy lead
Claire Bartlett
The Geelong College · Woodline Primary · HEI Schools Mauritius
Woodline is part of the story, not a venue. Play Makers runs at your school, your centre, or in an open program with other schools.
For school leaders
Teachers do the program. Leaders lead the change.
Play Makers is not something that happens to your teachers while you wait for the results. Claire and Dale lead a leadership strand alongside the teacher program, for principals, pedagogical leaders and the people who set the timetable, so the practice that grows in four classrooms becomes the practice of a school.
A shared language
See, design, extend, evidence. One model in every planning meeting and every walkthrough, from the early learning room to Year 6, so play stops meaning something different in every classroom.
Consistency of practice
Pods, challenges and the Journal turn one enthusiastic teacher into a team that plans, observes and documents the same way. What you send back into the staffroom becomes the standard, not the exception.
Curriculum alignment
Every unit designed in the program is mapped to the curriculum you report against, and to AITSL, the EYLF and the VEYLDF where they apply. Play-based learning sits inside your documentation, not beside it.
Teacher confidence, measured
A pulse at the start, middle and end of the program on confidence with play-based pedagogy, alongside student engagement and agency. You will know what shifted, and be able to show it.
The value, articulated
By the end your teachers can explain the learning in the block corner to a parent, a colleague and a review panel, and you can make the case for play-based learning to your community with evidence in hand.
The leadership strand · with Claire and Dale
Leaders are in the room, not just on the invoice.
A leadership briefing before the first session: the model, the program, and what to look for in your classrooms
A note from Claire and Dale between stages on what your teachers are working on and how to back it
A walkthrough lens for leaders, built on the Observation Lens, so you can see the learning too
The Showcase at the end, where your teachers present their Play Maker Projects to you
And for families
Family workshops, alongside the program.
The hardest question about play-based learning is usually asked at pick-up. Play Makers schools can add family workshops, run by Claire and Dale, that show parents the learning happening through play in their own child's classroom: what to look for, what to ask, and how to keep it going at home. Your teachers gain a community that understands what they are doing, and why.
An evening or a morning, on-site, for the families of one class or the whole school.
Investment
One program. Built around your school.
Built around you
Play Makers programs
start from
$7,999
Custom programs and projects, built on request.
That is the starting point, not a package. From there, Claire, Dale and Paul design the program around you: the full four-stage progression across a year, a single term, one whole-school project, or a version for a network or a cluster. How many teachers, which stages, on-site or as an open program, and what your leadership team and your families need alongside it.
An early learning centre, a primary school, a P–12 college, a network or a diocese
Six teachers or a whole staff, in one stage or across Early Learning to Year 6
A weekend intensive for individuals, or two days (power plus pedagogy) for a whole staff
Sessions at your school, at your centre, or in an open program with other schools
The leadership strand, so the people who decide can see what the teachers see
Family workshops with Claire and Dale, so parents understand the learning happening through play
Bundled with Game Changers for leaders and Student Agency for students
A full program always includes
All four stages, from seeing the learning to evidencing it
The Play Makers model and the Observation Lens
A Play Pod and the Play Maker Journal
An implementation challenge between every stage
The Academy, ClassBreak and BetterUs Schools
The Showcase, and the evidence pulse
How we design it
1
Tell us your context
Setting, stages, team size, what you are trying to shift, and the dates that matter.
2
We design the program
Claire, Dale and Paul shape the stages, the streams and the challenges around it.
3
A proposal within a week
One document, one price, no surprises. Then a call to walk through it together.
Pricing indicative for 2027 programs. Every program and project is quoted individually. Ask and we will send a proposal within the week.
Straight answers
The questions principals actually ask.
Do we have to commit to a year?
No. Play Makers is an approach, not a calendar. Every program moves through the same four stages, from seeing the learning to evidencing it, and the same model, whether it runs across a year or is compressed into a day. A day changes what your staff notice. A term changes one team’s practice. A year changes what a school does. Start where you can, and we will design the rest with you.
Who is Play Makers for?
Early Learning to Year 6, deliberately. Early childhood educators, primary teachers, pedagogical leaders and the school leaders who back them. Claire’s practice spans early learning to Year 6 across three educational settings, and learning through play in a secondary timetable is a genuinely different and harder problem. We would rather do one thing properly than stretch it thin. If you are secondary and interested, tell us anyway, because it shapes what we build next.
How is this different from Game Changers?
Game Changers is about the power of play and it develops leaders. Play Makers is about the pedagogy of play and it develops classroom teachers. Same framework, same language, different lens and a different room. Plenty of schools will want both, which is why they can be designed together as one program for the whole school.
Will this help with literacy and numeracy?
That is the right question and we will not overclaim. Play Makers is built to make the learning in play visible, planned and evidenced, which is the precondition for it lifting anything. We run a pre, mid and post pulse on teacher confidence and student engagement in every program of a term or more, and are in conversation about an independent evaluation. We would rather show you real numbers in 2028 than promise them in 2027.
Does it map to the curriculum and to AITSL?
Yes. Every stage maps to the Victorian Curriculum capabilities, to AITSL standards for your registration evidence, and, for early years participants, to the EYLF and VEYLDF. Your Journal doubles as the documentation, which is the point of making it a journal rather than a folder.
Who is Claire Bartlett?
A school leader who has run play-based learning in three very different settings: more than twelve years at The Geelong College, then five years as Founding Principal of Woodline Primary, the twenty-acre farm school in the Geelong hinterland she opened in 2021 and took through VRQA registration, and now as Head of School at HEI Schools Mauritius, built on the Finnish educational model. Her practice is Reggio Emilia-inspired, with child agency and voice at the centre of it. She knows the compliance and curriculum-mapping side that principals worry about, not just the philosophy.
Is it the same program for early learning, Prep and Year 6?
The model and the progression are shared, because the argument is the same at every age. The provocations, the pods and the implementation challenges are split by stage, Early Learning, Foundation to Year 2 and Years 3 to 6, because how play evolves from three-year-olds to twelve-year-olds is exactly the progression we are building with Claire. A program for one stage is designed for that stage.
Take the first step
Bring Play Makers to your teachers.
Tell us what your school needs and you will hear back within one business day, from Dale or Claire, with a straight answer and a proposal within the week. We keep the number of programs small, because the two of us will be in every room.
One business day reply, from a human
A proposal within the week, one document, one price
A day, a term, a year, or a project built for you
Runs at your school, your centre, or in an open program
Who should you send?
Believes in play and wants the language to evidence it
Early childhood educators, primary teachers and pedagogical leaders who plan their own units
The person other teachers already copy
Would rather change their practice than collect a certificate
Send two if you can. Going back to a staffroom alone is the hardest part of changing practice.
