Defining the concept of play and what it means to those who work alongside children or who hold responsibility for creating and implementing early childhood policy continues to be a much debated and contested area and is not intended to be explored in this paper (Bruce 2004; Briggs and Hansen 2012; Sahlberg and Doyle 2019; Stirrup et al. 2017). However, the value of play as the pedagogy through which young children learn best, particularly during their first year in school, is arguably not yet fully understood by all within Scotland with responsibility for planning a child-centred primary school curriculum (Burns 2018; Goouch 2010). Wood (2014:4) wrote that children’s choices for free play within a child-centred education are being eroded “within shifting power structures and relationships, involving conflict, negotiation, resistance and subversion”. Moreover, Wood (2014) indicated that in England, at the heart of this shift in power was increasing pressure on early childhood educators including teachers, to implement a centrally defined curriculum which placed unrealistic demands on some children to achieve specified curriculum goals. More recently, Sahlberg and Doyle (2019) highlight some of the political pressures facing early childhood educators to reduce the amount of time children spend playing. These pressures include demonstrating children’s academic achievement as set out within public education policies. Nationally and internationally, teachers in the early primary stages are potentially torn between realising the advancement of play pedagogy within their classroom and responding to external assumptions that children need to spend more time on cultivating skills and gaining knowledge and understanding needed for the future.

Stephen (2010) suggests that changing pedagogy involves not only changing practice, but also thinking differently about the process of learning and the role of the learner and the teacher, indicating that some teachers have more to learn about the value and importance of play pedagogy in facilitating children’s learning. According to Fisher (2013), significant cultural differences exist between the early learning and childcare sector and primary schools creating a barrier to innovative pedagogical approaches at the early stages in primary schools. Children are too often expected to fit into the school culture, the routines, the rules, and the ways of learning that are sometimes at odds with their previous experience (McNair 2016).

The OECD report (2017) notes there have been improvements to children’s learning experiences, for example, by providing them with more opportunities for play during the school day, a focus on child-centred pedagogy, and the use of responsive planning which promotes the child’s voice in determining the curriculum focus and nature of learning activities. The improvements for children starting school, expressed within the OECD report are welcomed, and while play pedagogy has not yet been embraced everywhere, there are encouraging signs (Burns et al. 2020).

According to Wood (2014) during free play and free choice activities, as opposed to teacher centred activities children should be relatively unrestricted by adult intrusion and direction, thus enabling them to exercise agency, self-regulation, ownership, and control, and to direct their own learning. Balancing the need to value children’s right to choose and their right to play poses a challenge for teachers who are increasingly aware of the tensions which national policy creates through expectations to cover the curriculum goals. Similarly, there has been a push down into the early learning and childcare sector (ELC) in Scotland for assessment and formal monitoring of children’s progress against nationally agreed targets (Breathnach et al. 2017; Jarvis 2020). The introduction of baseline assessments for children starting school in Scotland has been met with considerable criticism and some resistance from pressure groups such as the Give them Time campaign and the Upstart movement (Scottish Government 2017b). The pressure then to ensure children achieve these targets becomes ever more of a challenge for primary school teachers and parents who are receptive to play pedagogy which, national guidance in Scotland suggests, is best suited to how young children learn and develop (Education Scotland 2020).

Stewart and Pugh (2007:9) define pedagogy as “the understanding of how children learn and develop, and the practices through which we [educators] can enhance that process”. Their definition is rooted in values and beliefs about what educators want for children, and supported by knowledge, theory, and experience. In defining the term pedagogy, there remains the challenge of the practitioner’s1 or teacher’s style of practice. Moyles (2015: 21) argues opposing pedagogies can be a fundamental barrier to implementing “playful pedagogies” which are considered “creative and innovative for both teaching and learning”. Nolan and Paatsch’s (2018) qualitative study which included interviews with two Foundation (first year of primary school) teachers and an Early Years coordinator found that the two Foundation teachers, experienced greater tension than the Early Years Coordinator in making changes to their teaching approaches, to their learning environments and being held accountable for covering the curriculum goals as set out in policy documentation.

Writing about how young children learn best Smidt, (2002) asserts that children can be taught to do many things in different ways. The concern she argues is to find the best way to promote learning in young children. McCabe (2020: 72) advocates that “play is the best way”, she suggests, “that in recent years the teaching community in Scotland has moved from a position of play-neutrality to one of play enthusiasm”. Samuelsson and Carlsson (2008) propose a sustainable pedagogy, a pedagogy that does not separate play from learning but draws on the inherent benefits of a playful pedagogy which values children’s contributions and offers them opportunities to take ownership of their learning. Howard and King (2015) claim play offers children a holistic route into experiencing curriculum content. Despite this recognition which many studies and indeed curriculum policy claim about the value of play “as a beginning, as a process, and an outcome”, teachers do not always think about why play is so important for children and too often they get caught up in what and when children should play when planning curriculum content (Howard and King 2015: 125). Moyles (2015: 21) goes further and suggests there is a need for teachers to utilise more “playful and creative pedagogies in the early years if we are to support children effectively now and into adulthood”.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory and its subsequent iterations are frequently used to support studies which explore the topic of life transitions. Transition is described as, “the adjustment to new contexts outside the family, whereby the child experiences ecological changes in their position, relations, and identity” (Education Scotland 2020: 89). According to Fabian and Dunlop (2007: 3) an “educational transition is defined as the process of change of environment and set of relationships that children make from one setting or phase of education to another over time”. Children in the author’s study not only transition between two culturally different sectors of education, but they also navigate changes in curriculum design, pedagogy, and identity as learners through the inevitable changes to their routines and exposure to a new set of rules (Burns 2018; Pianta et al. 1999). Hayes’ study (2003) found that children starting school are expected to adjust socially, emotionally, and cognitively to a new environment. Other transitions studies have found that friendships are lost or weakened, and new ones are created, and the skills and knowledge children bring with them to school are too often undervalued, not recognised or even ignored (Ackesjö 2014, 2013; Fabian 2002; Jindal-Snape and Miller 2010; Peters 2010; Rogoff 2003). Ackesjö (2014: 6) contends that “children both shape the transition and are shaped by the transition” and so the transition process becomes an ecological and sociocultural process, where children learn to “reconstruct themselves”, and their identity as members within a new community (Ackesjö 2014: 7).

Transitions studies have provided an extensive narrative on the social, cultural, structural, and pedagogical differences which exist between the early learning and childcare sector and primary school sector (Broström 2016; 2002a; 2002b; Peters 2002). These differences contribute to the challenges facing practitioners and teachers in ensuring children experience a “smooth transition” (Neuman 2000: 8) and open up possibilities for practitioners and teachers to share practice, thereby creating opportunities to work together across the sectors.

In a review of transitions literature, Peters (2010) highlights some of the characteristics which determine how well children transition to school. These include the nature of the social context the child enters, its compatibility with the characteristics of the developing person, for example, adjusting to the sharp socio-cultural differences which can exist between a child-centred environment and one that favours adult direction and didactic teaching. In the former, more flexible daily routines, activities and resources sit comfortably alongside play pedagogy, while in the latter; an adult-directed environment where learning is “packed with compulsory tasks” may present challenges for some children (Carr et al. 2009: 220).

The literature presented provides a rationale for questioning how ready Scottish primary teachers are to adopt a pedagogy of play as opposed to more traditional including didactic teaching approaches when planning and delivering an early years curriculum for children starting school.

The author combined elements of the Bronfenbrenner’s (2006) bioecological theory and Bourdieu’s (1985) sociocultural theory, to create a theoretical framework on which to base the analysis of the research data and discussion of the research findings. An important feature of the framework was the focus on relationships and interactions, to explore how these concepts develop between the child and others and to what extent the transitioning child is empowered to influence the pedagogic culture that exists within the spaces they occupy.

Globally, studies suggest there is a strong correlation between the influence of the social and cultural environment on the transitioning child, their ability to exercise agency over their learning and the existence of a child-centred curriculum delivered through responsive pedagogy, and a successful transition to school (Biesta and Tedder 2006; Blaisdell 2016; Dunlop 2021; Einarsdottir 2003; McNair 2016).

Recognising the importance of the social environment, the role of children’s agency at times of transition and the way the ‘early level’ of Curriculum for Excellence was socially constructed to support children’s learning, components of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 2006) and Bourdieu’s (1985) sociocultural theory were therefore combined. Bronfenbrenner (1979) stressed the vital role of interactions and strong relationships between participants, viewing the child as active and contributing to these interactions in a meaningful and respectful way. Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 1998) places a particular focus on the process of transition. Bronfenbrenner cited in Hayes et al. asserts that the process has the potential to overcome barriers that the context may create for the child in transition (2017). In addition, Bronfenbrenner considered the role that those in and beyond the child’s immediate environment play in influencing and shaping their development over time. It was this aspect of his bioecological model that particularly influenced my theoretical framework (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 2006).

While Bronfenbrenner’s model offers a framework within which to link bioecological theory to early education curriculum and practice, from an environmental and pedagogical perspective, a major criticism of Bronfenbrenner’s theory is the absence of the child’s voice (Griebel and Niesel 2003), Griebel and Niesel assert that Bronfenbrenner’s theory does not take account of how children transfer social capital, an important consideration for children starting school. Bourdieu’s (1985) sociocultural theory is relevant then within the sphere of education. His interpretation of social and cultural capital and his concept of ‘field’ deepened the author’s understanding of how children navigate and adjust to changes in social and cultural norms and networks which exist in and between the nursery settings and the primary schools. Interested then in what and how children learn, their relationships with practitioners and teachers; but also, on why children’s agency and social capital alters during the process of transitioning to school, Bourdieu’s work offered a way of understanding what it is like to be a child in transition, and their experience of the ‘early level’ of Curriculum for Excellence.

The study was informed by an interpretivist paradigm as it allows the researcher to view the world through the perceptions and experiences of the participants in their unique context or culture (Miles and Huberman 1994; Miles et al. 2014). The purpose of the study was to explore the multiple realities of ensuring curriculum continuity and progression in children’s learning from nursery to school. Qualitative data collection methods allowed the perspectives of parents, practitioners, and teachers to be gathered via semi-structured interviews and through naturalistic observations of children’s learning in their nursery and school settings. Understanding the barriers and challenges, the realities facing practitioners and teachers in planning for and ensuring curriculum continuity across the ‘early level’ for children transitioning from nursery to P1 (the first year of primary school in Scotland) provided the justification for adopting the ‘boundedness’ of case study methods (Merriam 2009).

Harrison et al. (2017) described three different approaches taken by prominent case study researchers. They suggest case studies are governed by each researcher’s philosophical position. Within an interpretivist paradigm, a pragmatic constructivist position was assumed: this led to the particular research questions, the exploratory nature of the study, the design and data gathering methods and the analysis employed in this study. The original intention was to have a single exploratory case study with one case, where the “unit of analysis” (Grünbaum 2007:88) was to be the group of thirteen children, their parents and the practitioners and teachers. However, after generating the data, and from early analysis of those data it was apparent that two ‘early level’ traditions existed across the two sectors of education: the nursery ‘early level’ and the P1 ‘early level’ therefore two cases were created.

The study was conducted in two local authority areas located in central Scotland: Riverside Council and Valleyfield Council (pseudonyms). Data gathering activities were conducted in two nursery settings; Bluebell Nursery Class and Mistletoe Nursery Class, two associated primary schools; Bluebell Primary School and Mistletoe Primary School, and a third out of catchment area primary school; Buttercup Primary School because one parent chose to place their child out with their catchment school (a right open to all parents in Scotland, depending on availability). To follow the child’s curriculum transition journey, it was considered important to include Buttercup Primary School in the study.

Purposeful sampling (Bryman 2012) was used to select the location and participants and to reflect the exploratory nature of the study. Riverside Council and Valleyfield Council had expressed an interest in the study and were therefore purposely selected. They broadly represented local authorities in urban areas across Scotland in terms of size, the structure of their nursery and primary schools and the curriculum taught.

Of the forty pre-school children enrolled across the two nursery settings, thirteen families responded to the invitation to participate in the study. All thirteen children whose parents agreed for them to take part were included in the study. All the names used in the study are pseudonyms. At the time of the data collection, the children were aged between 4 and 5½ years old and were in receipt of their annual entitlement of up to 600 hours free education and childcare (Scottish Government 2017a). They were all in what is referred to in Scotland as their ‘pre-school year’ (the year immediately preceding primary school start).

All of the practitioners and primary 1 teachers in the two nursery settings and three primary schools were invited to take part. A total of ten practitioners from the two nursery settings and four teachers from the three associated primary schools, volunteered and gave their consent. The research was conducted in line with rigorous ethical procedures (Economic and Social Research Council 2015) and permissions were obtained and approved by the author’s university ethics committee. Thirteen parents gave consent for themselves and their child. The issue of informed consent or assent was particularly relevant as the research methods included observing the children in their playrooms and classrooms. Informed assent was sought from the children before each observation period. This was important because from a child’s view, consent may be provisional (Flewitt 2005), and children have a right to express their choices on an ongoing basis.

When asked about how they plan the ‘early level’ for children, it emerged that practitioners’ planning of the ‘early level’ in the nursery settings was more responsive to the needs of the child and reflected a team approach. Conversely planning the ‘early level’ in P1 was mostly undertaken by the individual teacher “working alone” (Karila and Rantavuori 2014:382) or sometimes with a stage partner. The following excerpts show the variance in approaches to curriculum planning and pedagogy used by practitioners in Bluebell Nursery Class and Mistletoe Nursery Class

Hannah reinforced the practice of sharing information with members of the practitioner team, she emphasised the need to discuss how the child’s learning will be taken forward. She describes how a child-centred approach to planning the curriculum activities needed to build on the child’s previous experience, to deepen their learning, or to learn new skills (Moyles 2010). In Hannah’s comments, the child’s needs were placed alongside the expectation that the ‘early level’ experiences and outcomes guide rather than lead the planning process.

In the following extract, Megan from Mistletoe Nursery Class referred to how her team used their knowledge of the children as individuals to plan curriculum content in the long, medium, and short term. Their collaborative approach to curriculum planning also included opportunities to capture children’s views and opinions as part of the process. This extract provides an illustration of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) construction of development as an interactive process between the child and others.

When planning the ‘early level’ curriculum, nursery practitioners employed a collaborative approach, their plans were largely informed by the child’s motivations and interests as the stimulus for their discussions and to guide the content of the ‘early level’ activities on offer to children. Children were regularly included in these discussions, their ideas for curriculum content influenced practitioners’ plans.

In comparison, in the following extracts from Bluebell Primary School and Mistletoe Primary School the ‘early level’ planning approaches, used by P1 teachers occurred either in isolation or with a stage partner. The children had limited involvement in planning what they would be learning.

Laura described how she made the decisions about curriculum content, suggesting a predominantly autonomous system. It appears that the information received from nursery practitioners did not drive her thinking or help to shape her plans. She highlights the need to identify what the child can do, but a stronger message emerges, that is the emphasis on ‘covering’ and ‘achieving’ the early level. There is a sense that meeting externally imposed goals and targets creates a tension for her. The reference to meeting with practitioners implied that planning occurred across sectors, suggesting some collaboration.

The data also showed that the content of teachers’ ‘early level’ curriculum plans were influenced by both formative and summative assessments and meeting externally determined attainment targets.

When asked about her role in delivering the ‘early level’ Laura justified the use of whole class teaching rather than play as a means of helping her to get to know the children and to assess their learning abilities, their strengths and weaknesses, reinforcing the culture of gathering evidence of the child’s ‘readiness’ to progress to the next target.

Similarly, Holly from Mistletoe Primary School described how she relied on assessment to guide her pedagogy, as a way of organising the children.

Overall, play-based pedagogy provided the conduit for almost all of children’s planned learning within the ‘nursery early level’ tradition. Conversely, in the ‘P1 early level’ tradition, children’s learning was planned as subject specific activity, in an environment where coverage of curriculum programmes shaped the type of pedagogy that took place. Parents accepted that starting school would bring change for their child and for them. Indeed, over time they noticed their children had fewer opportunities to exercise agency over their learning, though by pulling together their individual and collective resources, children’s social capital was strengthened as they adjusted, coped with, and grew in confidence in a culturally different microsystem.

Consistent with bioecological theory, parents anticipated the environment, and the curriculum would look and feel different when their child started school, that there would be fewer opportunities in the classroom for play.

A shift in pedagogical approaches was noted by Jan. She noticed a change to the social order of life, suggesting the role of the nursery is now about preparing her son for school:

Parents perceived the classroom as a place where lessons were timetabled with a more formal system where their child would be taught new skills, or reinforce skills already gained, within a particular curricular area such as literacy and numeracy:

Analysis of observation data found that pedagogical approaches used by the nursery practitioners and P1 teachers to deliver the ‘early level’ were polarised. This raises some questions about the culture, the norms and variable curriculum planning practices employed by practitioners in the nursery settings and by the teachers in the P1 classrooms, reinforcing the existence of two ‘early level’ traditions. The thirteen children starting school needed to adjust how they learned by drawing on their social capital to navigate their way from the nursery curriculum tradition to the P1 curriculum tradition where teachers relied less on play as pedagogy and more on teacher-initiated and teacher-directed activities. The results showed that greater emphasis was placed on achieving nationally agreed attainment targets by the primary school teachers than the promotion of a play-based curriculum. Such a contested situation requires the child to act differently in each tradition, to bring about socially and culturally a change in their identities from being a nursery child to being a school child.

Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 2006) brings into focus the differences in the activities, roles and relationships experienced by the children previously positioned as expert learners in the nursery ‘early level’ tradition compared with their position in the P1 ‘early level’ tradition. As a result of their transition to school, not only did the child’s ecological environment change, but there were also changes in terms of status.

The following data extracts from Mistletoe Nursery Class, Bluebell Nursery Class, Bluebell Primary School and Buttercup Primary School demonstrate some variances in the pedagogical approaches employed by practitioners and teachers in each tradition.

In the above extract, the children were able to follow their own interests, to exercise agency while receiving appropriate interventions from Jill as she extended through well-judged questioning, the learning of Lewis and Walter who were having a go at balancing on the plant pots. Jill was responsive to their spontaneous interests and their wellbeing needs. Fisher (2013) writes that this type of learning is ‘child-initiated’. There was no attempt by Jill to influence their play, just a timely wellbeing reminder.

Jill then set up an opportunity for some role play around a traditional tale-the three little pigs, an ‘adult-initiated’ learning activity. However, there was no expectation that Lewis and Walter would leave their balancing activity to join her. Children in the area who did respond, did so because they wanted to, while Lily, Belle and John persevered with their chosen play activity. Broström (2016) asserts that play and learning are different, others argue they happen simultaneously, that both result in children acquiring new skills and knowledge as well as developing psychologically (Samuelsson and Carlsson 2008). An important characteristic of an ecological environment is that “learning through social interaction and communication” (Broström 2016:32) occurs in meaningful contexts for the child.

Almost all of the learning activities observed in the two nursery settings emerged spontaneously during free play or were planned by practitioners in response to children’s specific interests, needs and wishes. The value of learning through play, was also recognised by parents:

During the summer term before the children started school, a change in the way children learned was commented on by Jan (parent) highlighting the “many and multi-layered levels of influence on development associated with the different contexts in which children learn and develop” Hayes et al. 2017:105. In Jan’s view the structured learning activities in nursery were linked to preparing John for school:

Parents perceived that nursery offered more time to play and that their child engaged regularly in long periods of free play. As Fisher (2013: 18) reminds us “play allows children to gain mastery over and to be in control of their emerging skills and competences. Through play, children can make things happen-they can become another person, they can influence a story or a situation”.

Observations in the two nursery settings provided numerous examples of children exercising agency over their learning, and almost all of the time, children exercised choice over, ‘what, how, where and when’ they took part in learning activities. Although as the next extract illustrates, this practice was not consistent, and highlights how Eddie draws on his social capital to manage the situation.

In the two nursery settings, pre-planned adult-directed learning activities like the one outlined above were infrequent. More often, child-initiated play or practitioner support for child-initiated activities were observed. Sometimes, children actively sought support from practitioners, who then exercised their professional judgement in determining the level and extent of interaction required to support the child/children.

Overall, the pedagogical approaches used by the P1 teachers resulted in children experiencing more structured lessons and fewer opportunities for play or having autonomy over where and how to complete the activities set for them. In the next extract parents recognise contextual and cultural differences.

Parents talked about learning in P1 as a place where lessons were planned and the child listened to the teacher, with fewer opportunities for children to move about freely:

In comparing the ‘nursery early level’ tradition, with the ‘P1 early level’ tradition, parents recognised starting school would present their child with challenges that did not reflect their previous experience. Parents also expected change to occur in terms of regular communication, active engagement and influence over their child’s learning experiences in school.

In the following extract, Roddie was sitting on the carpet with his peers for a whole class sequencing activity, timetabled as a literacy lesson.

In line with a bioecological framework, where educators require a deep understanding of the child in context, the findings above show that pedagogy in the nursery ‘early level’ tradition was rooted in a socially responsive culture, where the child’s spontaneous interest and motivations that unfolded in their daily lives were capitalised upon by responsive planning. However, over time the child experienced more episodes of direct teaching. Lessons in the P1 ‘early level’ tradition were more often associated with the delivery of pre-determined experiences and outcomes. Play pedagogy was limited during the children’s learning experiences in P1 because the learning culture was influenced by the rules and systems of the school day. The results show that the ‘early level’ traditions were influenced by institutional structures, cultures, and pedagogical practices peculiar to each microsystem. The practitioners and teachers demonstrated these influences in the methods they used for planning activities, in their relationships and their interactions with children and parents and in their preferred teaching styles.

Policy makers and practitioners and teachers now need to recognise the existence of two ‘early level’ traditions. These traditions are rooted in the sociocultural norms and pedagogical practices of each sector of education creating a tension for the planning and delivery of the early years curriculum experience through play. By empowering teachers to embrace playful pedagogy in primary schools through cross sectoral collaboration, children starting school are more likely to benefit from a flexible, socially constructed, continuous ‘early level’ curriculum experience.

The limitations of the study are acknowledged, insofar as the findings of small-scale case study work are not usually generalisable, however there is valuable learning to be had. It is recommended that one of the ways to address the inconsistencies in implementing the Curriculum for Excellence-early level as intended is to bridge or connect pedagogical approaches (Barr and Borkett 2015).

This article has shown that while there may well be a shifting of minds nationally, and a readiness to adopt play as pedagogy, these approaches are not transferring consistently across the two ‘early level’ traditions. In reality, the pedagogical practice found in the nursery ‘early level’ tradition conflicted with the teaching approaches employed in the P1 ‘early level’ tradition. One pedagogical tradition child-centred, the other a predominantly didactic teaching approach to learning where play was too often reserved for break times.

A fact recognised by Hamish who protested not long after starting school that “there is no dirt [mud] to play with in school” (Burns 2018). Clearly, there is still headroom for early stages teachers to readily adopt play as pedagogy. It is suggested then that future research could explore contested understandings of play pedagogy and the early years curriculum.