How To Amplify Playtime Skills Development By Employing Efficient Playground Layout

Choosing the right outdoor play equipment for pupils is crucial to their physical, cognitive, and emotional development. An essential element in their progression through the 3 Fundamental Movement Skills, intricate care needs to be applied when deciding on the best pieces.

Equally important is where and how the outdoor play equipment is laid out. Children tend to gravitate towards favourite items repeatedly as they are developing related skills, and it is the task of a good playground to encourage them to advance these abilities while simultaneously persuading them to explore others.

In an era when schools are facing such strict budget limitations, it is more vital than ever that careful consideration is applied to the design of playground layouts to obtain the maximum value from equipment… and the key to a high-quality play area arrangement, whatever the budget, is simplicity complemented with optional intensities.

To get the most out of school playground equipment, the layout plan needs to consider the following:

• Design Flow For Exploration, Learning, And Life Skills
• Design Flow For The 3 Fundamental Movement Skills
• Design Flow For The School Yard Community
• Design Flow For Play Area Inclusivity
• Design Flow For Playground Safety

Design Flow For Exploration, Learning, And Life Skills

Combating obesity and sedentary behaviours, a ‘natural’ access feel to outdoor play equipment relieves stress and improves mood. The flow between different equipment determines how children navigate the space, which impacts their play narrative.

A well-designed play area can encourage children to burn energy, which leads to better eating (potentially being less fussy eaters due to an increased appetite), enhanced sleep (which can be deeper and last longer), and ultimately, improved concentration in the classroom.

It is best not to ‘guide’ children too much (or at least, too obviously), as there is merit in encouraging them to make their own decisions. This means that although various outdoor play equipment needs to be well connected, they also need to offer freedom of choice.

By not having a set narrative, pupils can explore different directions each time they enter the play area – for instance, one day they may engage with the closest item, the next they might venture left onto a more social piece, and on yet another day they may choose to veer right and explore a more challenging item.

School playgrounds need to be adaptive to child energy levels, too. They should provide areas for pupils to easily interact, places where they can spend time being reflective, and zones for engaging in more intellectual activities.

Creativity should be fostered, and imaginations ignited, by carefully placing building stations, equipment with moving parts, and open-ended items which feature materials such as water or sand, in the right spots. By making interactive panels accessible throughout the area (as opposed to using them to ‘fill a corner’) children can effortlessly develop their cognitive, emotional, language, and communication skills in-between physical developments.

Design Flow For The 3 Fundamental Movement Skills

The core skills of balance, agility, and coordination are all curriculum requirements that children need to develop as they progress through education. Collectively known as the Three Fundamental Movement Skills (3 FMS), school playgrounds play a vital role in pupils’ achievements in this area.

More than fulfilling a desire to be aesthetically pleasing, good playground layout encourages healthy habits such as walking by spacing items a short distance apart – and this principle can be taken much further. Placing climbing structures in-between popular equipment promotes the practice of balance, agility and coordination on journeys to other items, as well as on the ones the children are intent on using.

School playground layout should subtly, and conveniently, suggest the use of equipment that escalates skills. Once a child has mastered a piece of equipment, there should naturally follow an item which either requires a more advanced version of the skill, or the use of the ability in conjunction with another. For example, after a child has become proficient at a simple balance beam, another piece of equipment such as a rope bridge should be close by to offer a more challenging version of the skill.

Design Flow For The School Yard Community

Some educators believe they have seen a direct correlation between successful grades achieved by children upon leaving school, and the positive social development they experienced when they first began. Social skills such as taking turns, cooperating, leadership, negotiation, and compromise, all stem from playing together in an open space, away from direct adult intrusion.

The quality of an outdoor play area layout is crucial for this communal infrastructure.

Just as town planning helps to control the flow of individual action (shopping), while simultaneously affording opportunities for bringing people together (socialising), a well-design playground provides openings for individual exploration while still working to unite children in play.

Various sections of the playground need to be attuned to the differing energy levels and volume of socialising that children require at different times. This means providing paths to simple, one-person items such as gym equipment (chin-up bars, sit-up platforms) for quieter, self-reflective moments, and tracks to role-playing areas (castles, pirate ships) where children can indulge in fantasy and drama communally.

The importance of outdoor play equipment on developing social skills cannot be emphasised strongly enough. Games such as hopscotch are fundamental in encouraging a sense of turn-taking and cooperation in children, while also offering chances for making communal connections which reduce anxiety, loneliness, and depression.

Design Flow For Play Area Inclusivity

Providing pupils with an inclusive play area, committed to wellbeing with a focus on accessibility for all, does not need to be limited to schools with bulging budgets. By considering alternative needs during the design process of a new playground, accommodations can be incorporated from the outset, avoiding any later additional alteration costs.

Any well laid out play area will have given consideration to the following:

• Access – new pathways to areas may be required (grass is not usually considered an ‘accessible’ route to all)
• Promoting inclusion with the use of ramps and wheelchair gliders wherever appropriate
• Designing the area with plenty of shaded areas to accommodate medically sensitive children prone to overheating – particularly useful during heatwaves
• Separate areas which take into account the various ages of children and their needs
• Quiet zones to provide retreats for overwhelmed children

In addition to these, designs should appeal to diverse interests and cultures, with sensory components to benefit neurodiverse children, and tactile panels wherever possible so those with sight issues can also join in on group play.

By carefully considering the layout of a playground, schools can easily offer access to play for all, and hopefully make every child feel like playing on outdoor equipment is something they can take for granted.

Design Flow For Playground Safety

Spinning, swinging, climbing, kicking, running, jumping – almost all movements children love performing come with risk of injury to themselves and nearby persons. This is why designing a play area with plenty of space is important for avoiding accidents. Proper spacing, with great visibility making each area clearly identifiable, affords safety without inhibiting children’s desire to experiment with movement.

Consideration also needs to be given to boundaries. Well-positioned fencing can maximise the available area children can access, essential to allowing them to ‘freely’ explore while feeling secure in doing so, something they will likely rarely experience to the same degree anywhere else.

Shade is also important and can be provided either by planting trees or with shade sails – although attention should also be given to how visible the entire area is to supervising teachers.

A guaranteed aspect of play, which every child experiences at one time or another, is falling over. While the accident itself is unavoidable, there are measures that can be taken to ensure children ‘bounce back’ quickly from the incident – shock absorbent surfacing. Often a costly and unnecessary grounding for an entire playground, a professional outdoor play expert can assess which parts require safety surfacing, and to what depths.

Soil testing and drainage planning should also be taken into account when designing the playground surfacing and layout.

Just as swimming pools can have a deep end for practised swimmers and a shallow end for inexperienced paddlers, the safest playgrounds use a similar principle by being laid out with the range of children’s ages in mind.

While older children are generally attracted to fast, high-intensity outdoor play equipment (rope net pyramid spinners etc), younger ones are better served by gentler fare (animal-themed spring riders etc) which helps with their initiation into the world of outdoor play.

Ideally, to avoid accidents, these two areas should be visibly distinct from one another, and obvious routes to various equipment placed a good distance from harm’s way (to avoid excited children accidently running through the path of a swing, for example).

How To Design The Best Outdoor Play Area Layout

When designing the best possible outdoor play area for a school, consideration should be given to the following:

• Does the playground easily allow ALL children, regardless of cultural background, abilities or physical limitations, to explore the idea of discovering new things?
• Does it afford a safe space for children of differing skills to navigate the area, evaluate risks, and make decisions without direct adult supervision?
• Does it maximise the potential children have for growth by effortlessly utilising their play time for further development?
• Does it promote the social learning experience by encouraging children’s development via naturally engaging in activities together?
• Does it enable independent learning and progression, on pupils’ own terms, of the many skills required by the curriculum?

Need Help Creating An Outdoor Play Area?

The overwhelming difficulties of making sure all the necessary criteria are met when creating the perfect playground layout can leave you needing a lie down! Fortunately, Creative Play are here to help you pave the way to success. Our outdoor play experts pride themselves on their specialist knowledge and ability to guide schools to the best set-up for their pupils’ needs.

By partnering with Creative Play, educational organisations can work out ways to save money while still delivering inclusive, accessible play areas created specifically for the wellbeing of a diverse range of children.

Every child deserves the opportunity to play, so let’s make it happen!

I’d like help creating a great outdoor play area for my school –

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Interested in applying outdoor learning to your school?

Discover How To Achieve National Curriculum Success With An Outdoor Play Area

Also of interest:

Realise how to save money by making a school playground last longer

Learn how to choose the critical equipment for developing the 3 fundamental movement skills

Guide to creating your dream school playground