Findings

Our pre-research assumptions had been that several of our staff may have had serious reservations and answered with a definite no to at least 2 of the questions, so our findings were quite surprising.  To support anonymity, we decided to present our findings as percentages without displaying the total numbers of respondents to avoid drawing attention to the people who had indicated ‘unsure’ for some questions, in case it made them feel uncomfortable. 100% of respondents were happy to allow superhero play and cited many positives coming out of this type of play. 70% were comfortable with gun play with 30% being ‘unsure’. Reasons for being unsure related to safety, lack of understanding of the dangers of guns, community sensitivity (e.g., the Dunblane tragedy), and the fact that guns are a ‘real life’ problem as opposed to superheroes who are completely fictional. The responses to ‘other weapon’ play were 80% in favour and 20% unsure, with concerns similar to those mentioned in gun play.

Staff questionnaire responses demonstrated great knowledge of the many benefits of superhero/gun/weapon play. 100% of respondents gave benefits to this type of play, however there were no observations or floor book entries which highlighted it as a key interest of a group or individual child. This raises the question of why, if the majority of practitioners are in agreement with this type of play and know the benefits, are we not treating it in the same way as other interests? Is it fear of what others may think? Deep down are we against it and have had our answers influenced by what we now feel we should be saying? Or are we unsure about how to take it forward?

The initial plan of taking observations from afar had to be replaced with staff recording their own anonymously and placing them in an envelope. It was refreshing to see that everyone had allowed the play to continue regardless of whether it included superheroes, guns, or weapons. Would this still have been the case had they not been recording their observations or if we had not briefed them on the research? This is a question we would need to consider for any future research. There are ethical implications for not briefing those involved but also the possibility of influencing results through disclosing too much information in advance.  Any intervention from staff generally involved basic questioning, “what are you doing?” “what is that?”, with 3 trying to use more complex questions to encourage the children’s thinking. For example, “What super powers do you have?” “Argh! You got me, what can you do to help me?”  Although, the freedom to continue play was given, there was no evidence of taking the interest further, or using it as an opportunity to offer guidance around some of the concerns staff had mentioned in the questionnaire. Overall, there does seem to be a lack of practitioner confidence in how best to respond to this type of play and/or how to use it to show development.

Conclusion

Our research has provided us with a great platform from which to extend the project. We have established what areas of superhero/gun/weapon play are of concern to our team – children’s safety, their understanding of right and wrong, being sensitive to the local community – and we have identified the level of freedom with guidance that is currently being used to support this type of play. Our dissemination has been planned and will involve sharing the overall results and group discussion around acceptable boundaries relating to the concerns raised. Hopefully this will help clarify our position as a team before we move forward with collecting the views of the children and their parents/carers. In terms of freedom with guidance, we also want to get staff input on the development of training resources which will increase their confidence in supporting and developing this type of play, ensuring the children are benefiting from the considerable development opportunities the team identified.