Children facing a ‘brutal’ loss of time and space for play at state schools

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

• A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

• New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

• The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

• Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

• School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

Damien Jordan, the head of Fairlight primary school in Brighton, told the Guardian he did what he could to let children play with just 800 sq metres of outdoor space.

“We are a real inner-city school,” he said. “We have children who leave here on a Friday, go back to their flat and won’t go outside again until they come back here on Monday morning.

“We have to be their garden, their football pitch, the space where parents can talk to friends.”

Jordan said he had seen play stripped from the school day over his time in teaching.

“I’ve been a head for 22 years,” he said. “We are now trying to cram far more learning into the same length of day. The curriculum means that from six or seven years old play is gone … it’s brutal, children aren’t ready. The classrooms change from a free-flow space to what is more like an office.”

James Bowen, an assistant general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, was also deeply concerned about the “overloaded curriculum” and the burden it places on teachers and children, which means “it can be challenging to make sure there is time to cover everything – including ensuring time for play is built into the school day. NAHT would like to see a reduction in curriculum content so that schools have the time and space to make sure not only that the curriculum itself can be covered properly but that there is time for the other crucial aspects of school life.”

And headteacher Tina Farr, of St Ebbes primary school in Oxford, said nothing was more important than making sure students have space and time to play. “Just switch the news on and you will see the mental health crisis for children. We need to start running schools in line with healthy child development. We can give them a nourishing six hours a day and we absolutely have to.”

Meanwhile pupils at England’s top private schools enjoy more than 330 sq metres of green space each, a Guardian investigation revealed. Many of those schools offer sports or outdoor activities on a daily basis and emphasise their belief in the vital importance of outdoor time to the development of a young person’s mind.

Experts and teachers are linking the growing issue across the state school sector to the rise in mental heath problems among young people. In 2023, according to the NHS, approximately one in five children and young people aged eight to 25 had a probable mental health problem.

But as the election approaches neither the Conservative nor the Labour manifesto acknowledges the link. Both parties have promised to expand mental health services in schools, and the Conservatives say they will also mandate two hours of PE a week. But the expert consensus is that children need at least an hour a day of exercise, a level that many doubt they are achieving.

Dr Helen Dodd, a professor of child psychology at the University of Exeter medical school and an expert in the link between play and children’s mental health, said children urgently needed to be allowed more time outside for play. “My background is in mental health. I keep hearing we need to improve treatment for children. Well, hold on a minute – why are we putting so much effort into treatment when we first could give them more opportunity to play outside?

“This is low-hanging fruit. Before we spend money on counsellors, on treatments – let children play outside more when they are in school.”

But she said many school spaces were not fit for purpose. “The environments we are putting children in are not designed for their health or happiness. And school staff are telling us that because of the pressures that are put on them for educational attainment they can’t prioritise outdoor play.

“We know that the science shows children need to be in nature – we need to find ways to ensure children can do this.”

She said too many barriers were put in the way of children getting outside. “I hope we are in a pre-change phase, as I am seeing more interest in play since the pandemic, though I wouldn’t say I’m seeing actual change yet. Schools won’t try offering more play unless the government is interested so it has some possibility of being adopted as wider practice.”

Dodd said what she saw in schools was part of a worrying wider picture. “Children are losing space and time to play everywhere.”

Dr Jackie Applebee, a GP in Tower Hamlets, east London, said: “There is compelling evidence that exercise benefits mental health, in particular outdoor exercise, so those with less access to outdoor, green space are disadvantaged.

“Severe cuts to council budgets mean that local councils often don’t prioritise outdoor play spaces and cuts to the education budgets mean that schools, who are heavily inspected and penalised, inevitably prioritise the classroom over the playground.”

The crisis follows decades in which local authorities and state schools have sold off their playing fields, with about 10,000 sold under the Tories between 1979 and 1997, and several hundred sold since then.

Up until 2012 government regulations required that a secondary school with more than 600 pupils needed 35,000 sq metres of playing fields, which is about 58 sq metres for each child. But under Michael Gove as education secretary, the government dropped the requirements and introduced new rules that meant schools had only to provide an unspecified “suitable outdoor space” for PE lessons and play.

The Department for Education defended the change as making it “easier and cheaper” to open new schools, with some free schools opening in refurbished office blocks offering little outside space.

But a Guardian analysis of the school estate, drawn from government figures, shows these changes have led to thousands of children attending schools with little or no outside space. More than 300 schools have less than 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space at all. At close to 1,000 schools, students have less than 10 sq metres per pupil. And state schools in the most deprived areas of England have the lowest amount of outdoor space, with 18% less per pupil than those schools in the least deprived neighbourhoods of the country.

Steve Chalke, the head of the Oasis Trust, which runs schools in deprived areas of England, said local authorities were not keeping hold of enough land for children to live and breathe in. “Councils are turning land into housing but leaving local schools without enough space. I’m seeing very cramped new schools where staff tell me: ‘You can’t swing a cat here.’”

“Local authorities are not thinking of the next generation when they build too much housing. Once the space is gone it’s gone for ever. Children need green space for their mental health and we will neglect this to our long-term regret.”

Updated research on the amount of time pupils are spending outside shows the same decline in provision. In 2019 Ed Baines, a senior lecturer in psychology and education at the UCL Institute of Education, found with his colleagues that the youngest primary children, aged five to seven, were getting 45 minutes less break time each week than children of the same age did in 1995. Secondary pupils lost 65 minutes over the same time. His recent work, shared exclusively with the Guardian, indicates that this trend has continued, with the youngest children losing 14 more minutes a day.

Baines said: “The newest figures have a caveat that they were taken when children returned after lockdown restrictions ended in June 2021 but the trajectory is deeply concerning. All our research shows that young people are also engaging in much less social interaction with friends outside school.”

A group of childhood and education experts recently launched a “plan for play” backed by the MP Kim Leadbeater, calling for the Department for Education to put play into the curriculum alongside maths and English for all ages.

Michael Follett, the director of Opal Outdoor Play and Learning, one of the organisations behind the call, said children’s poor health could be tackled by a focus on play in all aspects of their life – but particularly in schools. “There is a current and escalating crisis in childhood. Children are less fit and less active. They are increasingly suffering from mental health problems at a scale we have never seen before.

One of his colleagues, Neil Coleman, said: “We hear again and again from headteachers: ‘The children don’t know how to play.’ If they aren’t getting enough time to play at school – the reality is for many children they are playing nowhere.”