More than 625 early childhood professionals from 79 countries visited Belfast last month to take part in the 2009 World Forum on Early Care and Education.

The 2009 World Forum marked the 10th Anniversary of World Forum Foundation. In these 10 years, more than 5,000 early childhood professionals from 90 nations have participated in gatherings in Singapore, Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Northern Ireland, Italy, Hungary, and Colombia.

More than 60 sessions and seminars during the three-day conference from 16 to 19 June, covering everything Transformation in outdoor spaces: Adding the wonders of nature to outdoor settings to Better childhoods for vulnerable young children, Global music for children to Policies and gender roles.

One of the many speakers was Laura Henry, Managing Director of the London-based Childcare Consultancy. During a session on Building an international support network for play, she spoke about how her idea of play was of “children having fun” and that play was “not prescriptive, but led by the children”
She spoke of visiting day nurseries “where I don’t see staff interacting with young children”, then told the delegates, “A lot of practitioners think that if children do play they won’t learn anything. We all know that children do learn more through play than through prescriptive play from adults.
“I think equally too very young children value outdoor play. We have a long way to go – especially in England – in terms of the value of outdoor learning and play for our young children.”

Barbara Lingard of the Central North Island Kindergarten Association in New Zealand, agreed and stressed that the outdoor play area “is as essential as the literacy base room” in schools.