10 Top Tips to Make Practical Improvements to Your Playground and Play Times
These practical and simple steps can be used to improve your playground using the Zoneparc concept at minimal cost. You may choose to implement all or some of the ideas to meet the needs of your school.
1. Consult with the people who spend time in the playground
• Find out what your pupils enjoy doing and what they would like to have or do in the playground, to help decide your priorities. What existing activities, markings or equipment are popular?
• You can conduct an audit of pupils' views, talk to the children through your school council or set up a playground council. Putting some of these ideas into practice will ensure greater ownership of the playground.
• Find out what lunchtime supervisors feel the issues are at play times. Encourage them to become involved in decision making and structuring activities.
2. Zone your playground for different activities
• To prevent specific activities dominating the entire playground, zone different areas for: sports (e.g. football, cricket, hockey), multi-skill or free play (e.g. skipping, passing and catching, dancing) and quiet play (e.g. board games, word games, playtime theatre).
• Create specific markings within each zone that children want and will use for games and activities. Brightly coloured areas often inspire children to be more active and make zoning clearer. Make sure that the children know how to use the zones and markings.
• Allocate play leaders and lunch time supervisors to each area.
3. Offer a range of activities
• Provide a range of 3-5 alternative activities in each zone.
• Offer activities that encourage children to mix and work together (e.g. parachute or relay games).
• Consider innovative activities, such as circus skills and cheerleading that often appeal to pupils who feel excluded by many traditional games and activities.
• Consider setting up a dance or theatre area with music.
• Use indoor spaces like the gym or hall as play zones during wet weather for activities such as quiet play or skipping.
4. Provide enough equipment
• Introduce bright, safe, durable equipment specifically for playground activities.
• Make sure that there is enough equipment available for all children to be active.
• Establish a fair, efficient system for borrowing and returning playground equipment, for example, a key-ring or booking system or a rota for classes and zones to have different sets of equipment.
• Provide storage for equipment, taking into consideration accessibility, safety, and security against damage and theft.
5. Train staff to assist activities
• Train teachers, midday supervisors and/or classroom assistants as mentors to supervise and explain how to organise activities. Make sure they have the resources they need.
• Offer whole-school playground training or find out about courses in your area. Contact your LEA to find out what training might be available.
• Give opportunities to work towards qualifications in play management or sports leadership. Encourage feedback about staff roles and potential improvements.
• Assign leaders to different zones based on their skills. Some may feel confident leading certain traditional sports or ask parents with the relevant skills to run activities.
• Consider appointing an activity manager to oversee the running of playground activities.
6. Allow children to take on responsibility
• Train children as play leaders with responsibility for organising activities, guiding younger children and distributing and collecting equipment.
• Recruit them through nomination and election, or through application and interview.
• Give play leaders desirable clothing, bibs or bands to identify them as mentors in the playground.
• Consider enlisting junior sports leaders from your local secondary school to run activities.
7. Provide challenges and competitions
• Set regular challenges for children that promote co-operation, problem solving and teamwork.
• Set clear targets for physical activity (e.g. number of minutes spent exercising at lunchtime).
• Reward commitment and participation in activities, not only for the best results but also for progress and effort (e.g. present, stickers, certificates and prizes).
• Consider running competitions to maintain pupils' interest and excitement (e.g. a competition to design an activity card and introduce the game to the other children).
8. Use of rotas
• Consider organising a rota to offer children a variety of activities while allowing enough time for them to learn and develop their skills.
• Rotating the roles of mentors and play leaders helps them to learn different organisational and leadership skills and keeps them from losing interest. (e.g. distributing and collecting equipment one day and leading a new activity another).
9. Budget
• Use devolved capital or fund raising events to provide a budget for your playground.
• You can adapt these principles to suit your budget, but to ensure changes are sustainable include them in future development and maintenance budgets.
• Build in the cost of replacing lost or damaged equipment and worn markings, which will be well used in an active playground.
10. Contractors/Materials
• Before you contact a contractor to do any works in your school, decide what you want to achieve to improve play times.
• Assess the playground surface - do not apply permanent markings to broken surfaces and expect longevity. Work with your contractor to make sure your project takes any issues such as poor drainage or patchy surfaces into account.
• Get a range of the markings and equipment they offer and ask your playground council or pupils which they prefer.
• Take account of materials each contractor uses when deciding upon a design - chalk or spray painted markings are cheaper than thermoplastic markings but are less durable and will need replacing more often. Ask a contractor which materials are appropriate to suit your budget and needs.