Nottingham Games
What games do you play?
Nottingham Games is a pupil research project that celebrates the games that children play. We are building a living archive of past and present
playground rhymes and games. Working in partnership with the City’s schools, we aim to empower children as researchers to collect, collate and document games, rhymes and playground activities for two films and a book - a compendium of games from different generations, and from the diverse communities of Nottingham, including those from other countries, cultures, languages and traditions.
The project leads are Rick Hall, rick@rehearsal.org.uk and Chris Hall, christine.hall1@nottingham.ac.uk. Please do reach out if you'd like to know more!
Blue Bell Hill Games 2023
How it all came about!
In 1983, in response to media concerns about a decline in children’s play, a Nottingham headteacher collected the rhymes and games played by the children in his school.
Blue Bell Hill Games by R.A. Smith, illustrated by David McKee, was published by Puffin; in the same year Central TV screened a 14 minute feature, based on the book, about the games played at the school.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the book and film, in 2023 a research team of ten Year 6 Bluebell Hill pupils worked with Rick Hall and Chris Hall to find out what the children are playing today. First we had a careful look at the original book and film. Then the researchers broke into sub-teams to survey all the different year groups in their school. We worked as a group to analyse the survey findings and to decide the best way of categorising the games that were being played.
We used these findings to create the shooting script for our film and worked with professional videographers to make the film (watch below) which was premiered in Blue Bell Hill School assembly in December 2023.
Creativity Collaboratives
This project and short film was created as part of the 3 year Creativity Collaboratives Nottingham project, (funded by Arts Council England and Freelands Foundation).
The research team hopes that this latest version of Blue Bell Games is a useful contribution to an ongoing debate about the nature and importance of children's play.
This has led to a new Heritage Lottery Funded Project, Nottingham Games!