Watch Stephen Heppell's CI2010 Presentation!

'Playful learning; why we all need cheering up.'

Stephen begins his presentation with an anecdote about his friend’s son’s first day of school. The night before the big day, the child’s father found him in his bed, fully dressed in his uniform – backpack on – ready to go. He was SO EXCITED about starting school, he just couldn’t wait....

Stephen begins his presentation with an anecdote about his friend’s son’s first day of school. The night before the big day, the child’s father found him in his bed, fully dressed in his uniform – backpack on – ready to go. He was SO EXCITED about starting school, he just couldn’t wait....

What takes us from this joy of learning to the dismay experienced in our teen years and beyond? In this presentation, Stephen explains how play & joyfulness can bridge this gap.

The model of learning in the last millennium, Stephen suggests, was a model of “met-before” learning. Children would arrive to sit with their exam and think: “Oh, I really hope there are no surprises here.”... 

But the world is full of surprises. Natural disasters, economic collapse… As you will have seen, when these big surprises come along, we are generally paralysed for about a week! We are incapable of reacting instantly and thinking of a solution.

Stephen has been involved in setting up a number of schools around the world, using a whole new system of education. One that is based around playfulness and joy, not the expectation that you can ring a bell and all students will be hungry at the same time, or that you put children in a classroom just because it is a certain day in January.

By using this innovative new approach in the Caribbean, they have succeeded in changing the education system of an entire nation – with the children’s performance doubling over a 4-year period.

This is a delightful & engaging presentation addressing the importance of playfulness: bankers playing with toys in their pin-striped suits, board members swimming in lakes with shark fins on their backs, and hijacking ideas from primary school curriculums in our workplace.

If our system is going to cope with the unexpected surprises ahead of us, we absolutely need to put play right back at the heart of learning.