Early Years adviser Sheila Sage offers tips and advice on how to manage and change a role-play area once it has been established. We follow the progress at Stanley Road School after a garage and forecourt shop play area has been set up in the classroom. The role-play area is adapted as the children find new ways of developing characters and scenarios within the garage. The practitioners play the roles of customers, mechanics and car drivers. Sheila Sage emphasises the value of close observation so that future play can be shaped on exactly how the children have adapted the role-play space for their needs. Some of the children have fathers who are taxi drivers and this experience helps drive the role-play in a new direction as the children begin creating their own cabs made from cardboard boxes. Finally, Sheila Sage advises that when the children eventually become bored, it is time to create a fresh project.

Video Series: Early Years
Release Date 2005