My wife teaches children in the age of 4-6 at an expensive, well-known, and high-achieving school, following a British curriculum but not in the UK.<p>The whole damn syllabus is play-focussed. Teachers aren&#x27;t allowed to plan lessons more than a day or two in advance as they&#x27;re required to follow the children&#x27;s interests. Play activities are set up to help the children develop certain skills, and their development in those is monitored, but again, it&#x27;s _all_ play.<p>This was a difficult adjustment for her coming from a deprived inner-city school in the UK, but she&#x27;s now on top of it, and the whole child-led development thing appears to be pretty well established in academic circles.