Local parents with lived experience approached MASKK and asked for our support to create opportunities for children with SEND and their families to come and play. They fed back that for some families taking their children to play centres or general parks was a challenge, and they wanted to help create a space where children and families felt comfortable to be themselves in a place they could feel safe and with no judgement.

Our team, Craig & Emma, with help from Lisa (Manor Church and Community Project) committed to volunteer their time on Sundays to help along side these passionate volunteers to make it happen.

Running bi-weekly this new group welcomes new families, gets messy, enjoys a cuppa together and snacks, and looks forward to organising outings and visits in the future.

For more information visit our SEND Sunday page here: https://www.maskk.org.uk/project/send-sundays/

From 2007 to present, MASKK has given our time, resources and expertise to help local events take place. Each year, we work in partnership with other local groups and volunteers to help plan and run events that bring the community together and celebrate what an amazing, diverse area we have.

These include:

• Easter Crafts & Fun
• Summer Fun Days in Manor Fields Park (the middle 4 Wednesdays in the Summer Holidays)
• Halloween Fun, 31st October, at Manor Lodge
• Community Lantern Event on 5th November at Manor Lodge

In 2022 we started working with Sheffield Theatres to create Showtime! a weekly activity. In July that year the children performed on stage at the Crucible.

The group continued as Creative Thursdays,which ran during term time. Since then they’ve worked on different forms of art and put on further shows in December 2022 and in July 2023 we once again performed on stage at the Crucible. You can watch the performance here: https://www.maskk.org.uk/showtime-at-the-crucible/

We are grateful to Sheffield Theatres for their continued support and you’ll find them popping up at our different groups to help inspire children.

Sheffield Healthy Holidays (Healthy Activities and Food – HAF) is available only to children who receive benefits for free school meals.

Due to the restrictions and financial risks created by the payment-on-results Commissioning Model, the company was forced to decide in 2025 to withdraw from the programme until significant changes are made.

Instead, we work hard to fundraise and partner with Green Estate, Manor Church and Community Project, and others to provide holiday activities and events available to all children, regardless of whether they qualify for free school meals or not, or whether parents can book and drop off. 

For those who do receive means-tested benefit-related free school meals, you can find more information by visiting https://sheffieldhealthyholidays.org/

In February 2025, The Raising the Nation Play Commission, a year-long independent inquiry into why play is critical to the well-being of children in England, published its Interim Report, ‘State of Play’.

It shows how breaktimes have fallen most for children in primary schools in the most deprived parts of England. Schools with a higher proportion of children in receipt of Free School Meals have shorter breaktimes. While there has been no decline in play in private schools.

It highlights that other pressures within schools mean teachers can view breaktimes as a loss of valuable teaching time, rather than a valuable part of the child’s life and well-being. Some schools use missing break times as punishment, which may violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and their right to play and recreation.

Average total break time in minutes per day in England’s schools across four national surveys

‘State of the Nation’ makes a range of evidence-based recommendations to the Government to reverse the loss of play time in schools, including:

• Calling on the Government to establish the first National Play Strategy for England since 2008, led by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. The strategy would set out a clear, long-term vision to ensure children can easily access and enjoy places to play in public, at school, and at home.
• New statutory Department for Education guidance to ringfence time within the school day for breaktimes and lunchtimes, and support for The British Psychological Society’s call for an extra 10 minutes of play to be restored to the school day.
• Ofsted to include play sufficiency – specifically time to play – as a measure of school performance to encourage schools to boost play in school time and reward those schools who value play highly.
• School teachers, staff, and supervisors to receive high-quality and mandatory play training to enable healthy and active breaktimes and playful learning.
• Ringfenced funding for local authorities to maintain and renovate playgrounds and provide new ones in playground deserts.
• The adoption of a legally binding Play Sufficiency Duty for England, bringing England into line with Scotland and Wales, to ensure that local authorities provide sufficient play opportunities and to communicate them to parents and families.
• A Review of the use of ‘No Ball Games’ signs and update byelaws for Parks and Open Spaces to create a more welcoming, heathier, and active environment.
• A national campaign to encourage and support parents to play with their children, as part of the drive to improve school readiness.

Source: https://www.centreforyounglives.org.uk/news-centre/inquiry-report-calls-on-the-government-to-restore-school-playtime-amid-warning-that-play-is-being-squeezed-out-of-childrens-lives

At MASKK, we fully support this call for action, and to help, we have already:

• Delivered free Discovering Play training to staff and parents at two local schools, Pipworth and Prince Edward.
  • We are open to discussing this with other schools in our area.
• Been part of Friends of Manor Fields Park, bringing the children’s voice to the table when it comes to the playgrounds.
• Supported the EAST LAC to consult over 70 children and young people about what they want to see in Seaton Fields.
• We support the British Psychological Society’s call for an extra 10 minutes of play to be restored to the school day https://www.bps.org.uk/time-play #TimeToPlay.
• We champion play through all our networks and connections with Sheffield City Council and others.
• Craig has started teaching PARS Playwork Practice, on behalf of Common Threads, to staff in schools across the country.

PARS Playwork is supporting play in schools around the world, you can watch an example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5J4dlZkoKZA