By Molly Magennis
Victoria University’s Early Childhood Education Department is running pop-up play spaces around Footscray as part of an innovative placement program for its students.
Students will be using recycled materials like cardboard, pieces of fabric, milk cartons and cable reel’s to run these play spaces for children of any age.
The placement will allow students to engage with children, gain their trust, and observe how they use their own creativity to play.
“We really have to believe that children are clever and creative and inventive,” said VU Early Childhood Education lecturer Sarah Jobson.
“The best way to do that is to watch what children do when they’re playing with lots of loose parts.”
“It’s also great for our students, to meet people in the community, and to have conversations with parents and carers about their children, and just enjoy that social aspect of talking to parents and children and meeting together in a community space.”
Ms Jobson said while COVID did speed up the development of this program as families needed safe outdoor spaces to play, the main reason behind the play spaces was to teach students how to properly interact with families and children.
“When they become early childhood teachers, they know how to interact with families, they know how to trust children, they know how to feed their ingenuity, they know how to provide lots of materials and then to stand back and wait for the amazingness to happen.”
VU’s pop-up play spaces will run at Footscray Park and Railway Reserve on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9-11am and 1-3pm until March 26.
