Designing school playgrounds to improve student behaviour

Designing school playgrounds to improve student behaviour

School playgrounds can be wonderful places, but they can also be a place of loneliness and conflict. Some of our students find the playground space very difficult and struggle to connect, take risks safely, and resolve conflict that inevitably happens in games and other activities. This conflict can of course extend beyond the playground, as teachers and other staff are brought into the conflict through disciplinary actions, conflict resolution, and emotional reactions to whatever happened at playtime, often leading to interruptions to lessons and important learning.

Perhaps there is a better way of designing a playground that can reduce the amount of conflict and loneliness that leads to poor student behaviour?

If we can change our thinking to create a “preventative” environment rather than a reactive one, we can reduce the amount of issues that arise.

Our journey began like many schools dealing with conflict in the playground, often starting with extra items being put into the playground for students to use, think Lego, building items, extra sporting equipment. I think every school I have worked in has done this at some stage, only for this to fall apart a week or two later, with equipment going missing, storage boxes being broken, and no one supervising the area. Everything then returns to stage one, with a slightly more messy playground.
We knew that if we were to do this properly, we needed to be more strategic and come up with a plan.

UK-based Stephen Heppell, a world-class school and playground designer, was well known in this area, and I had heard about his work on toilet design in schools. I was lucky enough to hear him speak once, so I knew he could be someone we could look to for ideas. I sent him an email in the hope that he might lead us to some good thinking. He replied saying that he would like to Zoom me to discuss, well beyond what we were expecting. In the email, I had written that we had some neurodiverse students who had been struggling and that we wanted to create a space they could go to when they had conflict.

At 5am the next week, my computer started buzzing for what I thought was an 8am call. He was in Spain at the time and the time difference was a bit out. I jumped out of bed, threw on a top that could look somewhat professional, and the conversation began.

His first advice was that we were thinking about it wrong and that we should be building a playground that prevents problems from happening in the first place. It just made total sense, why wait for the problem to happen? He then made a list of suggestions and possibilities that were all quite simple, but were about creating space for students to be busy, occupied, and connected.

At the same time, we were also speaking to landscape architects. We appointed one and began our journey. Stephen met with us again to review how we were going, this time with our landscape architects and our draft 10-year master plan. We had given our architects the list of suggestions from Stephen, which they had taken into consideration.

At our school, one of the oldest in Victoria, we did not have two things: much space or money. I remember our landscape architect commenting that he did not have much to work with, so whatever we did had to fit into tight budgets and tight space. We did speak to playground companies, but they were way out of our price range and a little too much of more of the same. Our 10-year plan allowed us to spread the costs out, with some items listed in the hope we could find funding later, for example, new playground equipment when a grant might become available.

We are now in Year 2 of our master plan. Things have moved slowly, but we have managed to make some changes. Two big items have been completed so far.
Firstly, we worked with a local artist who designed a musical cubby. It is fully tuned and has a number of musical components. I have seen professional musicians play classical music on it, so it is quite a piece. This is appealing to a number of students who love music or just making noise.

Secondly, and our major spend so far, was a redevelopment of our sandpit and garden area. Gone was a closed-off, weeded garden that students hardly went near and a tiny sandpit. In its place is an extra-large sandpit and active garden area. An area that used to accommodate 3 to 5 students now has 30 to 40 students in it most of the time. A lot of these students previously struggled in the playground space, often in conflict or lonely. Now they have a space to be, play, and connect, even if they are not directly playing with another student.
Our students who were often in conflict are now finding their place, and our students are returning to class more settled and calm, ready to learn.

Does this mean we have no conflict now? No, of course not. Conflict and risk-taking behaviour still occurs; however, we are not dealing with the same amount or level of conflict. Redesigning the playground has had a real impact.

So where are we now? Well, we have eight years to go, still working through the master plan. Money is the major drawback. It still costs money, and with the current economic situation and increasing building costs, what money we had disappeared fairly quickly. Some artificial grass, which we were hoping to delay, could not be put off, so it has taken priority over some of the more impactful ideas. Sometimes practicalities do get in the way. The main thing is we still have a plan, and we hope to implement it.

So, if you want to improve student behaviour, think about your playground. Playgrounds are not just about the sporting kids. Playgrounds need to have space for connection, play, creation, and building. It does not have to be grand, it just needs to be something to engage students. The benefits are worth it.