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Several students I know are doing research into children's play at the moment, so hopefully all of them (and many other readers) will find today's post useful.

Last week Play England published Play for a Change - Play, Policy and Practice: A Review of Contemporary Perspectives. The organisation presents this new report as "a comprehensive review of the evidence underpinning current thinking on play", by analysing research and literature published in this area since 2001. The references list contained in the appendix is a whopping 39 pages long, so is an excellent source of further reading if you have an interest in this topic; once you've read the report itself of course...

If you follow this link you'll be taken to a page where you can download the individual chapters and appenix one at a time. Even the summary version is 63 pages long, but can be accessed by clicking here. Or if, like me, you find your attention span decreasing with age, try looking at the 4 page research briefing with gives a short overview of the project and its findings.

Remember that details of other play-related reports, and links to the research, can be accessed by clicking the 'Play' link in the 'Hot Topics' menu on the right hand side of this screen. You may also want to look through the back issues of Children's Play Update, a monthly magazine which is freely available from the National Children's Bureau's Play Information Service; to do so, click here.