Interim Report by the Raising the Nation Play Commission inquiry into why children are playing less in England calls on the Government to increase and ringfence school playtime, as evidence shared with the Commission shows a significant fall in school breaktime since the mid-1990s.
The report reveals the growing barriers to play in England, including playground closures, concerns about traffic and safety, cuts to park budgets and play facilities, and the growth of a ‘No Balls Game’ anti-play culture.
It warns generations of children are spending less time playing, less time outside, less time with their friends, and more time inside glued to digital tech, at a time when millions of children are growing up unhealthy, unhappy, and not ‘school ready’.
The report sets out the huge benefits of play for children and calls on the Government to introduce a National Play Strategy to ‘get children playing again’, alongside legally binding requirement for councils in England to provide play facilities and opportunities for children, new funding for playgrounds, and a review into the use of ‘No Ball Games’ signs.
The Report lays down foundations for a Play Strategy for England to be proposed to the Government in the Commission’s final report in June. It both highlights the significant barriers preventing children in England from playing, including a reduction in school playtime, and proposes solutions to Government to make play an integral part of growing up again.
The report argues a National Play Strategy is more urgent than ever, with around four in ten children living with an unhealthy weight, more than a quarter of children overweight (including obese), one in five children and young people in England struggling with a diagnosable mental health problem, and around one in three children not school ready.
The report highlights how:
- Time spent playing outdoors has declined by 50% in a generation and fewer than three in ten children say that they play out on the street.
- At least 400 playgrounds, and probably more, closed across England between 2012-22.
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Over 2m children in England up to age 9 don’t live within a ten-minute walk of a playground. (Slade Gardens Community Play Association is unique in our free safe place to play!)
- The annual park budgets for England fell by more than £350 million between 2011-23. (We are under financial pressure – funding is drying up)
- Spending on play facilities across England fell by 44% between 2017/18 and 2020/21.
- The distance children are allowed to roam at the age of eight has been estimated to have fallen from six miles to just 300 yards over four generations.
The report warns that while play provides huge benefits to children, including improved memory and problem-solving skills, developing social skills like self-regulation and negotiation, better mental and physical health, and boosting school readiness and learning, millions of children in England are missing out on the opportunity to play.
Among the barriers to play highlighted in the report are the decline in the number of places children can play, less time being spent playing outside and at home, the rise of traffic on streets, the increase in housing developments without spaces to play, and a growing ‘anti-play’ ‘No Ball Games’ culture that sees outdoor play as a nuisance or intimidating.
The report also reveals how, despite the immense benefits of breaktimes to children’s development and learning, play time has been squeezed out of the school day over a 25-year period. It analyses four national surveys carried out in 1995, 2006, 2017, and 2021, shared with the Play Commission, which show the significant decline in average total breaktime in minutes per day in England’s schools between 1995 and 2021.