Tim Gill’s book Urban Playground: How child-friendly planning and design can save cities, has now been published and can be ordered from the RIBA website here. This is an important resource for developers, planners and anyone who is concerned about the need to give children space in our urban environment. From Tim Gill’s blog: “The book opens … Continue reading How Child Friendly Planning Can Save Cities
Lisa Fairmaner, Head of the London Plan and Growth Strategies, has written to inform us that that new London Plan can now be published. This means that Policy S4 Children and Young People's Play and Informal Recreation is the current policy for development in London. The Alliance for Childhood was one of the stakeholders involved … Continue reading Published London Plan
The Prince’s Trust Tesco Youth Index 2021 reveals the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on young people’s mental health in the UK. The research indicates that while the pandemic has taken its toll on young people’s mental health and wellbeing, many are also more motivated than ever to make a positive change for their … Continue reading Change For The Future
No matter how little they relish taking exams, teenagers will welcome the clarity in today’s announcement that exams are going to happen next summer. Children have told me that’s the first thing they want – to know for sure what’s going to happen. It should also put a stop to the ferocious testing and assessment … Continue reading Exams are on, but we still need to recognise the time children have lost from school
Teenagers are consistently presented in the media as ‘trouble’, as perpetrators of crime and anti-social behaviour, alarming knife-wielding creatures lurking in groups in hoodies, mobile phones clamped to their ears. Some shopping centres even ban hoodies or use high-pitched ‘mosquito’ devices to prevent teens hanging around. But we have become concerned at the level of … Continue reading Mean streets
Play is essential. It helps children build resilience and make sense of the world even when things have gone a little crazy. So Assemble Play has made a collection of stuff, just like they use at Play KingsX. It’s for families to use to transform indoors, outdoors or just an ordinary park playground into an adventure. Lockdown … Continue reading Play Things: help spread sparks of PlayKX all over the place
