.webp)
Greg Bottrill is the founder of Can I Go and Play Now?, offering training for Early Years settings and schools, so that “the magic of children can really shine”. He’s also an award-winning author, a speaker, and a passionate advocate for play. He's behind approaches like Adventure Island and Drawing Club, and is also the creator of Play school TV, creating characters like “Zoomer the Number Dog," "Bob The Brick," "the Magic Mustard Tin," and "Tiny Ted”. He is a former Early Years Lead and Assistant Headteacher, but now works with a variety of settings to support educators to deliver magical and inspiring play experiences. As Greg says, “Education should be an adventure.”
Greg describes his pedagogical philosophy as "inner child-led pedagogy." He positions the adult's own unhealed or unlocked inner child as the most critical element in any Early Years setting. When adults reconnect with their own playfulness, they become more effective co-players and create richer environments for children.
Greg explains, "All the problems in education stem from the unhealed inner child of the adults that work within it."
The inner child is a psychological concept, most developed by psychologist Carl Jung. Your inner child represents the childlike, subconscious part of your personality, containing early childhood experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, and often strong emotions.
An inner child can represent both positive and negative traits, such as
When Greg refers to the "unhealed inner child", he's referring to adults who need to acknowledge and process their past emotions to care for their inner child. Healing your inner child also means doing work to provide comfort and security to the younger part of yourself.
According to the concept of the inner child, signs of a wounded inner child might be:
Signs of a healed or nurtured inner child can be
Greg argues that play is not merely a "behaviour" that can be modified or removed, but a core identity, intrinsic to every child. Framing play as identity protects it from being dismissed, scheduled away, or replaced by structured schemes.
"Behaviour can be changed. Behaviour can be taken away. Behaviour can be judged," says Greg, "It can be belittled. But your identity is who you are."
Greg warns that commercial learning schemes should not (and can not) replace the relational, loving environment that genuine play provides. He encourages Early Years practitioners to resist external pressures to introduce schemes that could encroach on play time.
"You don't need a phonics scheme for three-year-olds," says Greg, "You just need singing, clapping, dancing, movement, nonsense, rhyming, and love, essentially. A scheme cannot love you because it doesn't know you and it never will."
Greg explains the difference between passively "observing" children and actively "noticing" them, arguing that noticing requires inner work from the adult.
"If you notice something, it's more intentional," says Greg, " Say I've observed someone walking down the street. Lovely. But what you notice about them might be that they've got red laces on their shoes. I've had to look with more intention. I've never really used the word observation, particularly, I've tried to channel this idea of noticing."
Rather than debating the definition of "free play," Greg advocates for the concept of co-play, where the adult actively enters the play as a participant. This approach is about prioritising joy, choice, and child-led exploration.
"I go down that route of co-playing with children," says Greg, "I'd rather have that than all the children doing phonics for three hours a day, where their day is just a drag. If there's joy in the room, let's go. That's what it's about."
Greg challenges educators to imagine themselves as children within their own settings. This empathy-driven approach reframes planning around the experience of learning rather than the delivery of content.
"What TripAdvisor review would that child leave of your day?" asks Greg, "If they don't give you a 5 out of 5 day every single day, then you've got thinking to be done."
For educators who feel limited by their setting's culture or leadership, Greg offers actionable approaches such as "Adventure Afternoon" to incrementally shift team attitudes toward play. These strategies allow individuals to build evidence and enthusiasm from within, without requiring top-down mandates.
"I used to do something called Adventure Afternoon," explains Greg, "I basically said to the team, 'On Monday in the afternoon, none of us is planning anything, none of us is setting anything up, no one's having an iPad in their hand. We are just going to welcome the children back from lunch, and we're going to tell them it's Adventure Afternoon.' We just played, and the adults would go in and play."
Greg says that for each session, he asked the team something different:
"Wouldn't you know it, within time, my team wanted 3, 4, 5 Adventure Afternoons every week," says Greg
Start listening now
