St Mary's Student Wins TACTYC Reflection Award for Paper on Outdoor Play Accessibility

St Mary’s BA Primary Education student, Grace Murphy, has won this year’s Together and Committed to Young Children (TACTYC) Reflection Award at the annual TACTYC conference.

The TACTYC 2024 conference was held at Aston University on Saturday 2nd November, with the theme ‘Capturing Voices from the Early Years: Practitioner, Families and Children'.

The conference featured key notes from internationally acclaimed speakers Dr Nathan Archer and Dr Mary Moloney, and provided an opportunity for educators to showcase their research and reflections.

Among the attendees were St Mary’s BA QTS Primary Education early years elective students Grace Murphy and Corrine Anstee.

Grace was the recipient of the Reflection Award for her paper Can I play with you?. Her paper is a reflection on the current accessibility of outdoor play areas in mainstream schools and how this shapes children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)’s experiences of play.

TACTYC is an international organisation founded in 1978 by a group of early years teacher trainers who recognised how isolated they were feeling in their work. The group support professional development of the early years sector through world leading research outputs, as well as advocacy and lobbying work.

Early Years and Primary Education Senior Lecturer at St Mary’s University, Viki Veale, holds the position of Chair of Trustees at TACTYC.

Speaking on Grace’s award Viki said, “Grace thoroughly deserved to win the Reflection Award for her paper, Can I play with you?. In this paper, she makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of how to support the play experiences of children with physical disabilities.”

You can read Grace’s paper here.