The National Week of Play, recently launched by the Early Years Alliance, aims to encourage early years professionals to put play at the heart of their practice and support parents to explore new play ideas.
The Week of Play comes after many months of restrictions on children’s play in the pandemic, with parks, soft play centres and many parent and toddler groups closed for much of the past year.
Taking place from 21-27 June, the week will see providers given tips, advice and inspiration for prioritising play in their settings.
To celebrate the Week of Play, we accompanied City in the Community (CITC) coach Fuzail Patel on a session with one of our Early Years City Play classes in Greater Manchester, to see first hand the important role play takes in supporting and encouraging early years child development.
The City Play programme is a significant pillar of CITC Early years activity, providing bespoke physical activity sessions for children aged 2-5 in nurseries and schools across Greater Manchester.
Each themed session delivers a variety of fundamental movements and skills in a fun, engaging and inclusive environment. The programme aims to use of the power of football and the Manchester City FC brand to encourage children in Manchester to live a healthy and active lifestyle from a young age.
The City Play programme has delivered over 19,000 sessions worked with over 16,000 children to date. The programme aims to develop children’s fundamental movement skills through semi-structured, fun-themed sessions.
Ahead of the 2021/22 academic year, CITC are currently welcoming schools and nurseries to sign-up to our City Play programme. For additional information, please contact cityplay@cityfootball.com .
For additional information on the National Week of Play, please visit the Early Years Alliance website.
