Sporting Playgrounds
Children spend around 25 per cent of the school day in the playground. Traditionally playgrounds are often dull, uninspiring and intimidating for many children. In many cases, a relatively small number of children dominate playground activities which are exclusive to the majority. Therefore, by tackling inactivity, boredom and poor behaviour, improving playtimes can have a significant impact on school life.
Since 2001, the Government has been working with the Youth Sport Trust to support three phases of playground development in primary schools across England.
Phase 1— complete
The Department (with sponsorship from Nike) supported 13 pilot
playground projects. The Zoneparc model was introduced in all of the schools to
increase physical activity levels and improve behaviour.
This model zones the playground into three coloured areas for different types of activity so that certain activities cannot dominate the space. The red zone is for more traditional, active sport, the blue provides a multi-activity area and the yellow is a quiet-play area. This provides access to many more pupils who may be intimidated during playtimes. Zoneparc also introduces innovative play equipment and resources, and young play leaders and lunchtime supervisors are trained to distribute equipment and organise games and activities.
Phase 2 — complete
Due to the success of these pilot projects, the Department's
Sporting Playgrounds programme provided a further £10 million to support
around 600 more primary projects. Around 320 of these chose to develop the
preferred Zoneparc model with development support from the Youth Sport
Trust.
Phase 3 — due to start April 2006
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced, in April
2005, a further £2 million to support a further 90 Zoneparc projects
within 30 school sport partnerships.
Independent research into the Zoneparc projects has shown increases in physical activity, citizenship and leadership skills, improved behaviour and a reduction in the number of playground injuries. The disruption to afternoon lessons as a result has been dramatically reduced in many schools.
Download a guide on Primary Playground Development. This includes ten practical and simple tips schools can use to improve their playgrounds using the Zoneparc concept at minimal cost.
Download the 10 Top Tips poster
(A4 format).
Published: 11 December 2006
