If Play is a Child’s Right, Why Is It So Difficult to Sustain?
Play is a fundamental children's right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1998) and is central to learning, wellbeing, creativity and participation. Despite this, accountability demands, policy pressures and attainment-focused agendas continue to constrain opportunities for meaningful, self-directed play in educational settings (Bradbury et al., 2025). This raises an important question: if play is a child's right, why is it so difficult to sustain? For many...