Do Schools need playgrounds?

The Guardian in the UK reports that a new school, one of the most expensive in Britain in fact, does not require a playground! The school, Thomas Deacon city academy, designed by Norman Foster for the price of £46.4m opens in September for 2,200 pupils (lucky?) students. The blancmange-shaped building offers a wetland eco-pool and plasma screens on its main concourse but no playground and no traditional breaktime.

What is the reasoning for no outdoor playground you ask?

Barkham reports, "The Peterborough school says not having the "uncontrollable space" of a playground will cut bullying and pupils will not need to let off steam because they will not be bored."

Think of it, no need for fresh air in the lungs, none of those naughty children running around making noise! Amazing!

In the report, Miles Delap, the academy's project manager, says pupils will instead have a "programme of enrichment", including 500 sports fixtures each year, "fantastic" facilities for music, dance and theatre and a combined cadet force, "so they don't need this time of running around and disappearing on truant and sorting out a bit of business behind the bike sheds - that's what we want to take away".

All the research by childhood specialists I have read shows conclusively the need for unstructured play in learning. Tim Gill, a writer and expert on childhood, argues that "unstructured activity allows children to choose what to do and learn to take responsibility. "It's yet more colonisation of children's lives."

In a report released recently, the American Academy Of Pediatrics said children need undirected playtime, which provides a creative outlet and allows them to learn important social skills. Many schools under pressure to raise test scores or provide structured physical activity time, however, have been scaling back recess or eliminating it altogether.

If you feel as I do that this school is moving down a troubling path, you can go to a petition site and sign the petition.

Katherine Kerrison aged 8 who eventually expects to attend the academy contributed the following poem. It expresses the feelings of the children who this policy will effect:

NO PLAYGROUND

My two brothers and I don't
want to go to the Thomas
Deacon Academy because there
will be no playground and we
won't be able to  get frseh air

If it is a hot day we will
get quite tired and hot
We can't last a week without
going outside in school.
Probably the only time
we will get fresh air is
when we go to school and back and PE.
I really wouldn't like it.