Learning to Play

Unstructured times in the school day, such as playtime, can be particularly challenging for pupils with social and communication issues. Some of the difficulties you might see during play include:

• Asking if they can play with other children
• Playing games that other children have chosen even if the game is not their own choice
• Sharing toys with other children
• Recognising and telling people appropriately when they don’t want to play anymore
• Dealing with friendship issues and repairing situations when things go wrong
• Being flexible with their play and not playing the same game in the same way all the time

Materials here were created to help pupils understand and work out what to do in some of these situations.
Some resources were designed for pupils who are cognitively able with good language skills and others were created for those who would benefit from simpler and less language based resources.