Viv Jebson, Managing Director of Sutcliffe Play, a leading playground designer, takes a look at how different outdoor play options can stimulate your pupils’ imagination, and social and emotional well being.

It is now widely accepted that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances.

Often when we think back to where we played as children, it was a landscape with trees, dens, streams and fields.  The landscape and environment was more important than what we played with.  With this is mind, we are once again developing more natural settings for play; play without boundaries or fences; play that is extended by natural features and play that embraces the elements of air, water, earth and even fire.

Whilst streams and hills don’t feature in many schools, conventional play environments can be enhanced by natural features such as rocks, tree trunks, living willow structures, sensory gardens and allotment patches – all allowing children to explore nature, and ensuring they remember play like we do, in natural settings.

Natural play encompasses a combination of soft and hard landscaping, from sand, gravel and other materials rich in form, texture and colour, to a range of stone and wood elements in their natural form or finished to create bridges, compasses and sundials etc.

“In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.”

Now as opinion formers throughout the play and education industries embrace the concept, children are free to enjoy play that allows them to transform their environments into whatever their imagination will allow. 

Loose parts play fosters many types of play – creative, symbolic, social, physical, exploratory, fantasy and imaginative whilst at the same time making a real contribution to a child’s social and emotional development.
It is also worth weaving in use of the four elements:  wind, water, fire and earth.

The prevailing element of wind can be harnessed to drive wind turbines or transmit sound from one area of the playground to another whilst the ever changing tactile nature of water; warm or cool; soft or forceful; is irresistible to children of all ages.  A wide range of water play systems are available for different school settings.  Water can even be delivered into an area of sand to replicate a beach environment where children can build dams and divert water.

Fire is often considered with fear and suspicion by adults, yet there is a fascination with it by children.  In a safe, controlled environment, with facilitation from teachers, fire can be an established focal point for organised activities, and can bring about an understanding and awareness of the risks involved, and teaches children how to react and treat it with respect – far better than adhoc experimentation.

One question often asked is “Where does play stop and sport begin?”  Pretty much with trim trails and obstacle courses, which should provide a good mixture of balancing, climbing, and traversing, and can be played on at the same time as encouraging physical activity and a move into sport.  They can also conveniently link different areas of the playground.  The danger lies however when a school thinks that a trim trail on its own constitutes a good play area – it needs to be one element in a variety of play experiences, both indoors and outdoors.  

For further information on outdoor play opportunities available to your school visit www.sutcliffeplay.co.uk.