National Playgroup Week 18th - 24th March 2018
March 18th - 24th is National Playgroup Week
During this week, Playgroup SA aims to highlight the many ways that Playgroup brings communities together by supporting parents and caregivers of young children in their role as their child's first educator by learning through play.
Playgroups have been operating for over 40 years in SA, with over 320 sessions per week and 5000 parents, carers, and children attending each week.
The Community Playgroup Network is an important part of community life across both rural and metropolitan South Australia, with hundreds of Playgroups providing support to families who together, with their children, play to learn and learn to play.
A recently published report commissioned by Playgroup Australia has concluded that playgroups are universally beneficial to all children regardless of their background, and children who do not attend playgroups are less likely to be ready for school.
The report by the Telethon Kids Institute analysed data from the 2012 and 2015 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to better understand the impact that a playgroup experience has on children’s transition into school. Children attending playgroups were found to perform better on all of the child development AEDC domains including: Physical, Social, Emotional, Language, Communication and Cognitive Development.
The report also found that children who do not attend playgroups were 1.7 times as likely to be developmentally vulnerable when transitioning to school on one or more of the AEDC domains (a key indicator for potential problems in later school years).
Report Co-authors, Dr. Tess Gregory and Associate Professor Sally Brinkman, from the Telethon Kids Institute commented that “this research provides further evidence that children who attend playgroup during early childhood experience a range of benefits when they start school, and the research contributes to the growing evidence base about the important role that playgroups play in the mix of early childhood programs and services for Australian children”.
Playgroup SA Executive Officer, Carley Jones, adds that this latest research by Telethon Institute only further highlights the important early childhood opportunities Playgroups provide not only children, but their families as well, and is a vital cog to providing the best possible start to all children.
