Aditya Birla World Academy Celebrate ‘Global Play Day’

Aditya Birla World Academy celebrated an international event called ‘Global Play Day’, where the school students played all day long, thus transforming an instructional day into a day filled with fun. February 5 affirms a child’s right to play and is recognized around the world to encourage children to actively engage in unstructured play. This year around 3091 schools across the globe participated, out of which 20 schools were from India. 

It is very important for children to spend a few hours daily in play which allows them to have a balanced life. When children spend time outdoors, it helps in their overall development. Through this initiative, ABWA aims to positively impact the lives of its children by encouraging them to play a range of games which don’t involve modern technology. In this endeavour, the Pastoral Care Team at ABWA created different game stations, board games, group games and outdoor games which enabled the students to engage in unstructured play. All games restricted the use of screens and devices.

Commenting on this initiative, Neerja Birla, Founder and Chairperson of Aditya Birla Education Trust said, “We are happy to celebrate the Global Play Day which recognizes the importance of encouraging students to play. While we have moved a few steps forward towards recognising mental health, we need to understand that one of the reasons why mental health concerns arise among children is because they do not grow up playing outside their house by engaging in physical activity. For our future generation to have better mental health, it is important to encourage students to play tech-free and screen-free games that are more interpersonal.”

Radhika Sinha, Principal, Aditya Birla World Academy said, “When I was moving around the game-stations, I saw sparkle in the eyes of our little ones, when they asked me that can we do this more often?” Global Play Day is an important reminder to parents, teachers and care givers about the importance that play time has in the life of children. Hope this reignites the practice and returns the gift of unstructured play to our students.

Students’ voices

The students emphasized, “This should be done before every exam as it helps us to relax and become unburdened. We simply forgot about the pressure of academics today and it created a sense of calm and balance.”