I have been appointed visiting professor at The Playful Learning Centre, University of Helsinki, Finland. The Centre will provide a ‘living lab’ interdisciplinary approach to the making and testing of a range of playful and educational products and experiences. It is also committed to investigate the theoretical and conceptual developments in our changing understanding of the nature of learning itself and therefore deeply interested in how we might define and use the idea of playful learning both in the Academy, the marketplace and in popular discussions with families, children and young people.

‘Playful learning’ is a banner, a provocation and a heuristic. Whilst the education system of Finland has an international reputation, its practices are rooted in a particular set of attitudes towards childhood and preschool learning within a special emphasis on the nature of play as well as approaches to formal education which include a highly educated teacher workforce capable of articulating and mediating play with education.

The centre aims to bring together a diverse set of internationally renowned theorists and practitioners in order to understand more deeply what a phrase like playful learning might mean in the context of changes in childhood, developments in the education market place and theoretical understanding about the agency of young people themselves.