Pretend play meets the primary curriculum thanks to 400+ schools visits from Little City UK

Little City UK, the award-winning mobile role-play experience, has reached a significant milestone, having visited over 400 schools across the UK so far this calendar year. 

The company, which has over 36 franchises nationwide, has become popular with EYFS and KS1 educators looking to find affordable ways to spark children’s imaginations and support them with school readiness. 

Now that schools are back in the swing of the new academic year, Little City UK are urging schools to think beyond early years and explore how pretend play can support multiple curriculum areas, from history and languages to PSHE and careers education.

Vicki Fletcher, founder of Little City UK says, 

“This year, our schools programme has shown exactly how valuable pretend play can be. Since the start of the year, we’ve visited more than 400 schools across the UK, and we anticipate that we’ll meet the 500 milestone by Christmas. We’ve helped children learn problem solving skills, improve their social capabilities, taught them critical thinking and given them new vocabularies. Teachers have welcomed us in because our pretend cities are inclusive and accessible to all and our team have delivered sessions for mainstream schools as well as SEND settings.”

“But there still remains a belief that pretend play is for younger year groups. We want to remind teachers of the benefits of bringing in imaginative play for older year groups, particularly as the cities can be repurposed to mimic specific parts of the curriculum. For schools who want to make the most of cross-curricular learning, our interactive little cities can be the perfect accompaniment to any classroom.” 

Little City UK’s miniature role-play environments, including bakeries, salons, post offices, and hospitals align with key areas of the National Curriculum. The mobile nature of Little City means that they can be tailored to any space, from school halls to individual classrooms.

• In EYFS, children can use the role-play opportunities to explore, develop creative thinking and work collaboratively with their peers through real-world scenarios. 

• For KS1 History lessons, establishing a London city is an effective way of helping pupils understand how and why the Great Fire of London was able to spread so rapidly from a bakery. By visually demonstrating how and why the fire spread, the learning becomes more memorable and interactive. 

• Children learning modern languages can benefit from the props within each Little City to understand how to stimulate real-life conversations. Each city set up has its own natural dialogue and students can learn everything from how to order food, how to navigate a shop and even how to ask for directions in a real-life context. For individuals who need visual cues as part of their learning, this pretend-play approach can transform how they absorb and retain information. 

• Through imaginative role play, it becomes easier to inspire children during PSHE lessons by helping them understand different roles and responsibility and learn about the world of work. Individual Cities can be created for many different career pathways, allowing children to become inspired by the world around them.  

One school who made the most of a Little City interactive visit was Parkwood Primary School in Kent, who said

“The Little City visit to our school was a huge success with the children! They absolutely loved it all. They were so engaged and it was wonderful watching them interact with each other and have so much fun. It was a great way for us to revisit topics we have covered this year. Rhiannon was terrific at communicating and getting everything all set up smoothly. We would highly recommend.”

With the new school year underway, Little City UK is now taking bookings for school visits nationwide.

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