The Role Of The Playground In Schools

Recess or Short breaks provide valuable learning opportunities. Children pay more attention after taking short break throughout the school day. Play can be a powerful way to elevate the mind of the children and create an interest towards study. Experience on play ground promote social competence, let them interact with group of children and enable them to practice new skills. Play grounds can also be risky because it poses as an element of injury to students, but it is sadly an important part of their life as they learn to endure the pain when they are away from their parents. There are many children who find playground unsafe because of bullying and aggression which mostly occur on the playground. When the staff is not present on the playground, then student get the chance to learn fighting and other anti social behavior. It really needs supervision and it is important to take charge of the structure and procedure of the playground. Staff should follow the correct modus operandi to show them how a playground can support both student behavior and the learning environment.

It’s important to evaluate the physical environment of the playground and there is an important step which should be taken for enhancing the school safety. The staff should conduct a school survey like:

1. Gaps in the fence surrounding the playground.
2. Access points from the play area directly to a street.
3. Low-hanging branches or shrubs that prevent or limit adults’ ability to see children, especially around the edges of the playground.
4. Debris on the playground, such as broken glass.
5. Barriers to clear line-of-sight supervision, such as concrete walls, other school buildings, or trees.
6. Large, unsupervised play areas, such as fields.
7. Dangerous play equipment or ground surfacing material (See Handbook for Public Playground Safety listed in references for detailed guidelines).

Modern playgrounds are full of play equipments that encourage rapid physical development in kids. Therefore while selecting play equipments for kids, we should make sure that, we should not go for any sharp edged thing as it can cause great harm to them. So these equipments should be child friendly so that while playing with them, the children aren’t injured. The swings should not have more than two seats in the same section of a swing support structure. It is noticed that two swings placed close to each other often clash into each other, so they should be placed at a safe distance. After installation of the equipments in the playground, adults should check once whether these are placed and fixed up properly because a screw left loose may cause great injury to children.

It should always be kept in mind that the play place for kids should always be located at a distance from the road, if possible towards the interiors. When parents send their kids to school, they expect them to return safe and sound. Traditional games like British Bulldog and conkers are being forbidden at many schools because of its unsafety. Children, especially the younger ones, must be discouraged from carrying kids' toys while at play so they can properly hold on to the playground equipment.