Has play got a place in secondary schools?

The last Government, in preparation for the Children's Play Strategy, consulted children & families on what they wanted them to invest in around children's play. With over 9000 responses - mostly from children and young people - the overwhelming support was for more and better places to play for 8 - 14 year olds. Not for small children, but children who are already or will soon be at secondary school. 

Adventure Playgrounds - the places of magic that transform the lives of so many children - are open to all children up to 16 or 18.

Well today I did a presentation to a group of organisations representing secondary schools - unions, governors, curriculum specialists. There was broad agreement around what play can do for children - the importance for their mental and physical health, the fact that this is where children get to make friends that last a life time, that risk is essential in their play.

The biggest problem for secondaries - as highlighted in research by Peter Blatchford from the Institute of Education - is that most secondary schools have just a short morning break and barely any lunch time play.  This has dramatically reduced over the last few years, so that 95% of secondary schools have a lunch break of an hour or less. Many are only 30 - 40 minutes.

But there seemed general gloom and despondency about what could be done. Schools MUST concentrate on achieving GCSE results. And with reducing resources for assistants, less children going home for lunch and mounting concerns about parents sueing if their children have accidents, the consensus is that playtime is inevitably being cut for our 11 - 18 year olds.

And this despite the mounting evidence from neuroscience, behaviour, mental health and others that play underpins creativity, learning, problem solving, teamwork etc etc...

These are all skills valued by employers - and that help young people enjoy their teenage years. But the quote that sticks in my mind from today is one delegate looking at that list and saying that most children going  through secondary have these character traits bashed out of them...

So what's to be done? Next bit of research is to find the secondaries that have defied the overwhelming pressure, and where they are perhaps seeing the benefits that the primaries are seeing that have invested in scrapstore playpods. 

Certainly today reinforced my belief in Ken Robinson's analysis of education in the UK that - despite some amazing, dedicated people- is fundamentally getting something wrong. And one thing that is wrong is the loss of children & young people's fundamental right to play.