Loughborough College lecturer and award-winning author Gaynor Rice has been working with the BBC for a series about early years education and risky play.
Gaynor spoke to the BBC as part of its Tiny Happy People initiative, an online resource to support parents with advice and guidance on improving their children’s confidence, communication and language skills.
She talked about the importance of risky play for young children having won awards for her debut book “We’re OK With Risky Play”.
You can see the article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/risky-play/znpwkty
She said: “I have been doing some consultancy work for the BBC on their Tiny Happy People initiative and they asked if I would talk to them about risky play and the book for an online article.”
Gaynor’s book, which she co-authored with Anne Gladstone, scooped Gold as well as Overall Winner at the 2017 Practical Pre-School Awards.
The book explores how enabling young children to embrace risk might help keep them safer and develop their independence, with testers describing the activities it outlines as, ‘innovative, exciting and motivating for both the adult presenting the task as well as the child taking part.’
Gaynor said: “It was my first book and it was important to us that it was something we felt passionately about.”
She has worked in and managed early years settings for nearly 20 years and now teaches up to degree level at Loughborough College.
She said: “We wanted to combine many years of practical experience as well as theory to make it a really useful resource - whether you’re a professional, a student or a parent. It’s designed to be like a binder so it can easily be photocopied and the information can be used by lots of people. Wherever it is, it should be grubby.”