Just want to share a link for the wonderful Bob Hughes, a lifelong advocate for free play and play as a fundamental and essential part of human development.

A Taxonomy of Play Types in which he identifies 16 types of play that children display in normal play development

• Play types: social, socio-dramatic, rough-and-tumble, exploratory, object, creative, communication, deep, recapitulative, symbolic, fantasy, dramatic, imaginative, locomotor, mastery and role play.

He has written many other books since then, which can be found at his website Play Education http://rphughes44.blogspot.co.uk.

PlayEducation came into being in 1982. It was created by Bob Hughes, a playworker since 1970, to address the chronic shortage of training and education opportunities in the field of playwork.

Since then PlayEducation has provided cutting edge play and playwork training and education for playworkers, childcare and early years workers, environmentalists, scientific professionals, architects and parents in locations as diverse as Northern Ireland, Germany, Japan, Wales, USA, Scotland, Argentina, England, Hong Kong, Australia, the Republic of Ireland and Portugal.

I am glad to see he is still active and promoting the message of free play, which still seems to need to filter through to government and education alike.

Bob Hughes