Play School (1964)

Play School is a British children’s television series produced by the BBC which ran from 21 April 1964 until 11 March 1988. Devised by Joy Whitby, it accidentally became the first ever programme to be shown on the fledgling BBC2 after a power cut halted the opening night’s programming. Play School originally appeared on weekdays at 11am on BBC2 and later acquired a mid-afternoon BBC1 repeat. The morning showing was transferred to BBC1 in September 1983 when BBC Schools programming transferred to BBC2. It remained in that slot even after daytime television was launched in October 1986 and continued to be broadcast at that time until it was superseded in October 1988 by Playbus, which soon became Playdays.

When the BBC scrapped the afternoon edition of Play School in September 1985, to make way for a variety of children’s programmes in the afternoon, a Sunday morning compilation was launched called Hello Again!.

There were several opening sequences for Play School during its run, the first being “Here’s a house, here’s a door. Windows: 1 2 3 4, ready to knock? Turn the lock - It’s Play School.” This changed in the early seventies to “A house, with a door, 1 2 3 4, ready to play, what’s the day? It’s…” In this version blinds opened on the windows as the numbers were spoken.