Pioneering pedagogy.
Transforming practice.
Playoneering® is a comprehensive, enquiry-led pedagogical approach for children aged 0–11 years. Developed through over sixteen years of lived practice, it is grounded in research, child development, democratic participation and the belief that children are capable, thinking individuals.
It blends playful rigour with academic depth and strengthens curriculum outcomes not by increasing planning or paperwork, but by deepening professional responsiveness, sharpening observation and elevating the quality of interaction between adults and children.
Playoneering® is inspired by the values and pedagogy of Reggio Emilia and shaped through a long-standing engagement with its educational approach, while being developed within its own research environments and cultural context.
At its heart, Playoneering® is about co-constructing learning with children – ensuring relevance, meaning and joy alongside high expectations.
A pedagogy for relevant, meaningful and joyful learning
Playoneering® supports the development of learning cultures in which enquiry, agency and intellectual challenge sit at the centre of everyday practice.
It is not an add-on to existing systems.
It is a way of working that strengthens what already exists by bringing clarity, coherence and depth to teaching and learning.
Through Playoneering®, curriculum is lived rather than delivered.
Children’s ideas, questions and theories become the starting point for learning. Knowledge is developed in context, revisited over time and applied in increasingly sophisticated ways, enabling strong subject outcomes alongside deep understanding.
This approach strengthens:
- concept-driven curriculum design
- metacognition and self-regulation
- collaboration and communication
- authentic assessment and documentation
while maintaining a clear focus on progression and high expectations.
The image of the child
As a Reggio-inspired pedagogy, Playoneering® begins from a principled and research-informed image of the child as capable, curious and full of potential.
This image is held in close dialogue with the educational approach of Reggio Emilia, where the child is understood as rich in ideas, strong in identity and an active protagonist in their own learning.
Children are not seen as recipients of knowledge, but as collaborators in the construction of it.
This demands a different role for the adult — one based on:
- deep listening
- careful observation
- interpretation of thinking
- intentional interaction
In this context:
- planning becomes responsive
- environments become dynamic and evolving
- dialogue becomes central to learning
- documentation makes thinking visible
Agency, autonomy and sustained shared thinking are not future aspirations; they are lived daily experiences.
Playful rigour
Playoneering® brings together play and intellectual discipline.
Rigour is achieved through depth of thinking, quality of interaction and conceptual understanding rather than through acceleration or increased volume of content.
Educators develop the pedagogical knowledge and confidence to:
- design enquiry-rich environments that provoke curiosity and sustained engagement
- use questioning to connect and extend ideas
- ensure full curriculum coverage through meaningful contexts
- document learning in ways that inform teaching and make progress visible
The result is teaching that is both academically strong and deeply engaging – where joy and high expectations exist together.
Learning environments as the third teacher
In Playoneering®, the environment is understood as an active partner in the learning process.
Spaces are carefully curated to:
- invite investigation
- support collaboration
- offer open-ended materials
- reflect children’s thinking and theories
As learning develops, the environment evolves – becoming a visible expression of the shared enquiry.
Where Playoneering® is developed
Playoneering® is codified through a connected ecosystem of research and practice across:
- Little Barn Owls Forest & Farm School Nurseries
- Atelier 21 Future School
- Hayley Peacock Education
Within these environments, pedagogy is continually developed, refined and made visible.
This ensures that the approach remains grounded in real classrooms with real children and responsive to contemporary educational contexts.
From pedagogy to implementation
Because Playoneering® is a way of working rather than a programme, it is embedded through sustained professional development over time.
This includes:
- immersive in-setting work
- on-the-shoulder classroom coaching
- ongoing professional dialogue
- strategic leadership alignment
The intention is to establish strong pedagogical foundations, deepen classroom practice and ensure that the work is owned and sustained within the setting’s own culture.
The International Playoneering® Studio
The International Playoneering® Studio is a living laboratory for pedagogical research, professional learning and innovation – and a global meeting place for educators committed to Playoneering® and Reggio-inspired practice.
Here, educators experience Playoneering® in action, engage in sustained professional dialogue, and take part in immersive study visits that make pedagogy visible and tangible. Grounded in Reggio-inspired principles, the Studio treats environment, materials and relationships as active contributors to learning, inviting educators to see research as something that emerges through practice rather than separate from it.
The Studio includes a carefully curated pedagogical library and café space designed for conversation, reflection and collegial exchange – a place where ideas can be tested, challenged and deepened over time. It will soon host retreats and ateliers, combining rigorous professional inquiry with restorative experiences such as reflective time in nature and wild swimming. These experiences recognise that professional growth requires both intellectual challenge and space to breathe.
Beyond the physical environment, the Studio is part of a wider ecosystem of Playoneering® learning, connecting educators through on-the-shoulder coaching, studio visits, workshops and sustained dialogue. It is more than a place – it is a growing international community shaping environments where curiosity, creativity and meaningful inquiry flourish.
Signature Playoneering® practices your educators will learn
Playoneering® is made tangible through a set of distinctive classroom practices that teachers and educators learn and return to over time. These practices shift what adults do in the moment with children and create the conditions for deeper enquiry and playful rigour.
Educators learn how to become “problemators” of children’s thinking through our ACC model:
Affirm → Complement → Complicate.
This teacher-talk routine gives a clear and repeatable structure for how to notice and respond during play, creating the fuel for longer-term, deeper enquiry questions aligned precisely to children’s questions, ideas, hypotheses and challenges.
They also learn a suite of metacognitive classroom oracy routines and tools which establish a shared language of what it means to be a self-managing learner at any age. We call this speaking “learnish.” Through this, children develop self-efficacy, agency and autonomy and become masters of self-adjustment.
The signature Playoneering® approach to timetabling and class meeting facilitation provides the engine for this work – creating a consistent structure in which children’s ideas, questions, theories, experiences and challenges are relaunched back to them as strategic pedagogical moves to fuel enquiry and playful rigour.
Teachers and educators learn to weave curriculum learning objectives through cross-curricular playful rigour, balancing breadth, depth, sequencing and coverage of multiple subjects. They also learn how to assess learning both formatively and summatively against their own national or international curriculum milestones, irrespective of whether they deliver the UK National Curriculum, EYFS, IB PYP, Cambridge, IPC, Australian, Canadian or others.
Playoneering® is your route to exceptional delivery of your school or setting’s curriculum – it is not a replacement for it.
The Playoneers Leadership Programme
For leaders, the work deepens through the Playoneers Leadership Programme – a transformational learning journey for headteachers, nursery owners, senior leaders, room leaders and pedagogical leads.
This programme is designed to build confident, research-engaged leaders who can sustain meaningful pedagogical change.
Through leadership learning at the International Playoneering® Studio, study visits, shadowing and in-setting coaching, leaders are supported to:
- articulate their pedagogical vision with clarity
- align systems and structures with enquiry-led learning
- lead cultures of professional trust and reflection
- implement Playoneering® in ways that are authentic to their context
Leadership is understood not as operational management, but as cultural and intellectual work.
Book a place on the next Playoneers Leadership Programme
Bespoke Playoneering® consultancy for whole-setting transformation
Alongside the Playoneers® Leadership Programme, many schools and settings choose to work with us through a sustained, bespoke collaboration.
This is not a series of disconnected training days. It is a carefully structured pedagogical journey, designed around your context, your curriculum and your community.
Working in close partnership with leaders and teams, we support the development of:
- a clear, shared pedagogical vision
- environments that provoke thinking and enquiry
- confident, research-engaged educators
- coherent approaches to curriculum and assessment
The work is immersive and relational. It includes in-setting development days, classroom-based coaching, leadership dialogue and ongoing professional reflection, ensuring that change is embedded in daily practice rather than remaining as aspiration
Every bespoke project is different, but all are guided by the same principles:
- building internal capacity so the work is sustainable
- aligning systems with pedagogy
- respecting the culture and identity of the setting
- ensuring impact on children’s learning experiences
Over time, Playoneering® becomes not something the setting does, but the way the setting thinks, teaches and learns.
How settings begin
Some schools begin with their leadership team through the Playoneers® Leadership Programme and extend into bespoke in-setting development. Others begin with a focused whole-team project.
In both cases, the intention is the same: to build a coherent, research-informed approach to teaching and learning that is owned, understood and sustained by the setting itself.
What your setting gains as a Playoneering® School
Through the Playoneers® Leadership Programme or a sustained bespoke collaboration, Playoneering® becomes more than professional development, it becomes an embedded, living pedagogy supported by a rich body of resources, research and ongoing guidance. Leaders and teams are not left to “translate the training” on their own. They are equipped with the tools, structures and intellectual capital to lead change with confidence and clarity.
Your setting will gain:
- Extensive on-demand professional learning
Access to a growing library of Playoneering® video training, allowing individuals and whole teams to revisit key ideas, deepen understanding and sustain momentum between live sessions. - The complete Playoneering® Toolkit for ages 0–8
A comprehensive suite of pedagogical frameworks and practical guidance to support implementation across environments and phases. - Downloadable tools for immediate use
Observation, reflection, daily planning and assessment formats that reduce unnecessary workload while strengthening pedagogical thinking. - Ready-to-deliver staff training materials
Six fully prepared CPD sessions, with presentation slides and handouts, enabling in-house professional dialogue between face-to-face inputs from Hayley or the Playoneering® Learning Engineers. - Books and documented projects from real settings
Providing ongoing inspiration, a clear pedagogical “north star”, and powerful material for staff meetings, coaching and reflective practice.
Together, these create the conditions for sustainable, whole-setting transformation – not dependent on one person, but owned by the entire team.
Impact on children, educators and organisations
As Playoneering® becomes embedded, the impact is seen across the whole learning culture.
Children show higher levels of engagement, collaboration, independence and metacognitive thinking.
Educators become more reflective, more intentional and more confident in their pedagogical decision-making.
Organisations develop:
- coherent, concept-driven curricula
- meaningful approaches to assessment
- authentic evidence of the quality of teaching and learning
- sustainable systems for ongoing development
Transformation occurs not through isolated initiatives, but through a deep change in how learning is understood.
What educators say about us
Over the past sixteen years, hundreds of educators have engaged with Playoneering®.
Across schools, nurseries and leadership teams, the experience is consistently described not simply as professional development, but as a shift in how teaching and learning are understood.
Headteacher, Pocklington School
Wednesday Wonder participant
Early Years Practitioner, Little Pips Nursery
Early Years Educator
Wednesday Wonder participant
Atelier 21 Warsaw team
Alongside this sense of professional renewal, leaders consistently describe the long-term impact on culture, pedagogy and outcomes – not as a short-term initiative, but as a sustainable way of working that continues to evolve within their setting.
Beginning your Playoneering® journey
Most settings begin with one class or one phase, creating a strong, research-informed foundation from which the pedagogy can grow in depth and scale. Ready to begin your Playoneering® journey?
Make an enquiry
Download the Playoneering® brochure
Join the Playoneering® Network
