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How to Use Playground Markings to Make Your Play Area Even Better

41 | How To Use Playground Markings To Make Your Play Area Even Better | Creative Play

The right playground markings can make a play space even more enjoyable. They can enhance these spaces to stimulate, motivate and encourage kids to take part in outdoor activities. With the right markings, you could make a huge difference to the enjoyment of kids’ physical activity, as well as the development of a range of physical skills. Considering how many children nowadays spend less time outdoors, missing these beneficial outdoor activities, it makes a lot of sense to find ways to encourage them to use outdoor playground spaces.

Having specialists select the ideal surface markings can enhance the existing play spaces in your school, or provide the ideal complement to a new playground. This is a great way to stimulate the minds of children as they play, whether providing artistic surface markings or instructive ones. You can encourage the inquisitive nature of young ones, helping them ask questions as they play and helping in their efforts to satisfy their curiosity, helping kids to have fun as they learn and exercise.

School playground markings are used to help children get the most out of playgrounds. Anytime you get experts to design and install proper markings, you make your playground better. You can employ a design from the many markings available for our play spaces, be it a colourful pattern, your school colours, or football, netball pitch and/or tennis markings for a MUGA pitch. You can the already extensive benefits of MUGAs by having the ideal markings in place. These can allow children to enjoy a range of games in these spaces with clear direction, eliminating the monotony of a single type of game played every day.

MUGAs with playground line markings, for games such as football, netball, and tennis, as well as other types of games, are a very good addition to any school or park. They always draw children’s attention, providing an exciting space to take part in these important formative activities. These are spaces where kids can improve their talents, motor skills, health and learning as they enjoy playing. So, playground markings are very good at elevating a range of playground options.

40 | How To Use Playground Markings To Make Your Play Area Even Better | Creative Play

Playground markings allow the idea of using the same space for a range of games. This could significantly improve your school playground that kids use for limited games. You may have a small space in your school that allows one or only two types of games. You could get experts to create a MUGA pitch and make the proper markings to enable a larger number of games, with the rubber-based surfaces providing safety benefits as well.  Once the children realise that they can play many games in the playground, the spaces become a favourite for them. You will likely see a reduction in the challenges of children who stay indoors most of the break periods.

Proper school playground markings are ideal as an addition to play equipment, offering options such as numbered grids, maze markings on adventure paths and even classic board game markings. If you get experts to install these markings, you can create exciting experiences for the children in your school. These can be used to bring stimulating activities to the kids’ imagination, enhancing their creativity as they are actively playing.

43 | How To Use Playground Markings To Make Your Play Area Even Better | Creative Play

The play encouraged by this range of markings can help to strengthen the teamwork, social skills and physical health of your children. This could act as a starting point for structured activities, something that could develop into a very useful activity for kids. So, getting excellent markings will not just brighten up the children’s playground and moods, but also their future potential.

Making a playground safe is another way of making it better for children. You can use the recommended playground markings UK choices that emphasise the safety of children. Knowledgeable experts ensure that the markings they utilise are in line with UK guidelines. Here at Creative Play, for instance, we only provide markings on surfaces that meet the BSEN 1176 and 1177 safety requirements. Should you enlist our expert playground equipment installers to create your ideal playground, we ensure all regulations are met. Our specialists always create play spaces that will allow kids to have fun, learn and exercise in the safest way possible.

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In many ways, the right playground markings are the ‘bread and butter’ of any good playground. With the right markings, you can transform even a very plain space into a unique and colourful play area. You can have our specialists draw any design you need to provide your children with fun and educational benefits.

There are a range of innovative playground markings you can use to give a whole exciting story or create artwork related to your school or area. You could have markings on your playground surfaces with maps, referencing roads, homes, shops, malls, hospitals and other areas of the community. These are very effective in educating young children. This way, kids in your school won’t just use playgrounds to play, but also to learn.

What could be better than that?

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The Benefits of a Multi Use Games Area

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One idea that has become increasingly popular across many sectors such as educational settings, local authorities, holiday parks and parish council are the use of Multi Use Games Areas (MUGAs). These have been found to be very useful in many settings where children might want to play, given the wide range of choice and smart use of space. MUGAs come with a wide range of benefits and uses. MUGAs are now a leading option among the facilities that provide exercise and excitement while children get a level of choice in their activities.

What is a MUGA pitch?

A MUGA pitch is a construction designed to incorporate a wide range of sports and games, in order to eliminate the repetitive activity of a single game. While most playground equipment can entertain a small group of children, a much larger group of children can be engaged in Multi Use Games Areas for a considerable amount of time while playing different games, getting a chance to have their fill of physical activity and fun at the same time.

There are many fantastic MUGA options created by Creative Play UK, with options designed to target the activities kids want to play at any location across the country. These can help a child achieve physical and mental wellbeing as they enjoy, learn and exercise in this space. This is an ideal idea you can use to help kids in your school create a very positive link in their minds between having fun, and an active lifestyle, as they enjoy themselves. MUGAs really do fulfil this role in a fun and innovative way, providing a range of exciting play opportunities.

Creative Play has a range of MUGA sports pitches. You could even get one that allows standard mesh fencing as well as goal posts and surface markings to aid in games such as football, netball, basketball and tennis. These pitches come in different sizes, with features to allow adding different sports elements like target panels. You can contact Creative Play and they’ll construct a MUGA pitch in the particular design specification you need.

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Benefits of Multi Use Game Areas

Any school with a MUGA pitch gets a range of educational benefits every single school day. With the many great features of MUGAs, you get to have a wide variety of options on games that children in your school can engage in. This is possible even in small spaces, as the MUGA can save space by grouping activities and it is a great idea for schools with small outdoor spaces. The benefits offered by MUGAs are limitless; it is no wonder these play areas have grown and continue to grow more popular in schools across the UK.

At the moment, MUGAs are among the very few facilities to offer the flexibility of use and quality of delivery in a single space for a range of games. These spaces offer a versatility most schools can make use of, especially those experiencing challenges due to limited space. MUGAs have a polymeric sports surface, which offers a range of benefits too. Our experts can also build your MUGA to your precision and design.

This element of MUGAs offers another benefit, whereby you create a play space that you’ve designed yourself. You actually get to choose all of the specifics within your space, with specific markings chosen in regards to the games you’re targeting and want the young people to be able to play. This combats the potential boredom brought on by the monotony of only having one game in a single play space, which may discourage children in a school from accessing the playground regularly, and in turn, lower the enjoyment of the kids for taking part in outdoor activities.

Fortunately, with a MUGA pitch, you can change all that. By bringing a wide range of games in a single space, you encourage the kids to take part in many of these games, keeping them constantly engaged. This way, the children in your school get the many benefits of playing outdoors. They develop physically, mentally, and improve their talents and social skills through the range of games that MUGAs can offer.

 

Why is a MUGA good for schools?

You may well already be of the belief that MUGAs are highly beneficial and a great idea for your school. If you’re still to be convinced on the specific value of MUGAs, however, here are some reasons why a MUGA pitch could be the option your school needs:

Savings: A MUGA utilises spaces in the most economical way, where you can have certain markings to accommodate a number of games that are played independently but in the same area. You could have children playing netball and tennis in a pitch they have also played football in.

MUGAs also allow you to save on the expenses needed to make play spaces for different games. The versatile surface will allow for many games to be played in one area, which will save you money. You can have features such as goals and markings within the structure of the MUGA itself, saving on the money – and space – that would be need for multiple sports settings, resources that could be used for extra items such as sports equipment.

Easy Maintenance: For obvious reasons, MUGAs are very easy to maintain. You only have to maintain one area rather than many. You spend less time cleaning and repairing. Any upkeep on a MUGA is minimal when compared to that of many fields. You could also get a well-designed pitch with quality materials installed by reliable playground installing experts. Such a MUGA is durable, easily maintainable and long-lasting.

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A Bird’s Eye View – The Priory Parish CE Primary School

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The Priory Parish CE Primary School contacted Creative Play as they were looking to re-develop their existing play area. They wanted to remove the whole area and start from scratch to create a new environment that would allow children to explore the outdoors whilst developing fundamental movement skills and building confidence.

The area was to be used by both KS1 & KS2 children, therefore we had to provide something that would be suitable for a wide range of ages and abilities.

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After removing their current steel equipment, fencing, bushes & shrubs as well as excavating the ground, we installed a wide selection of equipment including a Jigsaw Tower System, suitable for a wide age range, a variety of Trim Trail items including a Jelly Board, Stepping Logs and Parallel Ropes, and a bespoke Octavia Shelter with planters, chalk board and trellis archway entrance.

Now the new area now offers a great mixture of equipment for not only play but outdoor learning and exploration, too.

News Theprioryparish3 | A Bird'S Eye View - The Priory Parish Ce Primary School | Creative PlayIn addition to the play equipment we laid multiple safety surfaces; Wetpour, Rubber Mulch and Artificial Grass, throughout the area. This helped to enhance the natural feel and complemented the surrounding area perfectly whilst, more importantly, ensuring the new playground met all the BSEN 1176/1177 standards.

After the installation we revisited The Priory Parish CE Primary School to see how the playground had impacted the school, we spoke with Head Teacher Greg Edwards, who said the “playground has allowed children to build confidence, cooperate more outdoors, and interact more with each other”. He also noted that pupils were “learning to have patience with each other” and that “the older children have been supporting the younger children to climb and challenge themselves further.”

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Do you want Creative Play to get involved with your school’s outdoor playground development? Get in touch today on 01244 375 627 to secure your free consultation and design quotation – or click here