Nowhere to hide

Posted: 8 September 2008

The Local Government Association is advising parents and teachers to defy the compensation culture by encouraging children to get involved in playing traditional playground games: www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=957831.

Councils are being issued with a list of ten traditional outdoor playground activities such as British Bulldog, Tag, Stuck in the Mud and Hide and Seek to combat child obesity, following predictions that 60% of children in the UK will be obese by 2050.

While this encouragement for active outdoor play is to be welcomed, it will take more than a list to inspire children to play. Many school playgrounds are uninspiring, boring spaces which discourage positive play. For example, a dull concrete playground offers limited places to play hide and seek, whereas trees, bushes, nooks and crannies naturally entice children into such games. 

Funding is now becoming available to primary schools to improve their buildings and grounds and it is vital that some of this is used to create more exciting play spaces. Learning through Landscapes, the national school grounds charity, has been helping schools improve their playgrounds for 18 years. In a survey of 700 schools that had improved their grounds, 85% of respondents said they had seen an increase in healthy active play as a result of change. In addition to this, LTL found that:

• 73% saw improved pupil behavior;
• 64% saw reductions in bullying;
• 65% saw attitudes towards learning improved;
• 84% saw better social interaction; and
• 66% said school grounds improvements have increased community/ parental involvement.

Chief Executive of Learning through Landscapes Catherine Andrews comments, “It’s great that active play is being encouraged by the LGA, we must also remember that stimulating playgrounds also encourages healthy active play and can make a significant contribution to a child’s education, improve behaviour, develop social interaction and even reduce bullying.”