Our News Category: London Play Press Releases

The London Play is one of many organisations behind the #SummerOfPlay campaign, to give children the space, time, and freedom to play this summer as Covid-19 restrictions are eased. Can your organisation join the pledge?

For more than a year, children across the UK have been forced to spend time indoors, inactive and isolated from friends due to Covid-19 restrictions. It is not surprising that we have seen unprecedented increases in children’s mental health problems and loneliness, alongside reduced physical activity.

In response, child psychologists, paediatricians and educators have independently and urgently called for play to be central to children’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and many others agree. Together we now are calling for everyone to help make this summer a #SummerOfPlay for children across the UK.

“After everything children have been through over the last year, we are calling on organisations to sign the pledge to support children’s play this summer.”

To join the #SummerOfPlay campaign, please take the pledge to enable all children, in all our communities, to have space and time for play this summer by supporting fun, friends, and freedom.

Sign the pledge here

As children return to school today after an enforced absence of more than two months, the sacrifices that they have made during the coronavirus pandemic are high on the public radar.

London Play

And as experts debate the best approach to help children recover, their emotional and mental wellbeing – and not just the gaps in their schooling – is rightly in their sights.

Writing in the Observer this weekend, the recently-appointed education recovery commissioner Sir Kevan Collins acknowledged that what children have lost extends way beyond educational attainment:

“Over the last year children have also lost out on countless other opportunities to learn and grow – through engagement in art, music, sport and play.”

He suggested that a comprehensive plan for recovery should span at least the next three years and that “nothing is off the table” in formulating this. He was clear too, that “the burden of recovery cannot be borne by schools alone.”

This is clearly an opportunity for the play sector to step up and offer to share this burden as the experts in promoting children’s wellbeing through play. If more evidence was needed, research published this week by Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity concludes that “one of the best ways to support children’s wellbeing is giving them the freedom to play. This is not only relevant in a hospital setting such as GOSH, but for all children as they try to cope with whatever challenges they face, including a global pandemic.”

Parents have watched, aghast, the impact of play deprivation on their children during repeated lockdowns.  The GOSH research found that one year on, “parents say the loss of their kid’s freedom to play with friends and wider family is taking its toll, with two thirds (66 per cent) voicing concern about the long term impact this will have on their child’s wellbeing.”

Meanwhile the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) surveyed almost 6,000 parents of school-aged children in England during the last week of February. Their findings show that a huge majority of parents (83 per cent) favour ‘catch up’ policies that would improve their children’s wellbeing. And while support for academic catch up policies (and particularly tutoring) is also high, support for policies that would see children spending more time in the classroom – such as longer, school days, summer school, extended school terms, or repeating school years – is much lower.

The government has already announced a £10m injection for additional after school sports programmes. This is to be welcomed but the interventions need to go much, much further.  Sustained support for play – to fund quality spaces and trained staff – will be a crucial element for a successful recovery.

A joint letter to PM Boris Johnson

Please prioritise children’s wellbeing during this third lockdown in England

Children’s mental and physical health has suffered enormously already and the potential impact of a further extended period without school or normal social interaction is unthinkable.

For children, playing outside (e.g. riding a bike, scooting, kicking a ball around) is an important way to be active, let off steam and interact with the world around them. It is essential for their mental and emotional wellbeing – and for their physical health. This is especially crucial now that children do not have access to either school playtime or after-school sports.

The Welsh government has recognised the significant benefits of outdoor play for children in their Covid guidance, clearly stating that children are allowed to play outside near home. In Scotland, the restrictions around meeting outdoors do not apply to children under 12.

In England however, whilst we welcome the fact that playgrounds remain open, there is currently no clarity for parents on whether informal outdoor play in public space is permitted under lockdown. For children, play is an important form of exercise but this needs to be made explicit by the government so parents can feel confident about letting their children play out without being fined or criminalised.

Along with the Children’s Commissioner for England, we therefore call on the UK government to provide clear, unambiguous guidance that outdoor play is allowed during lockdown, for children’s health and wellbeing. We further support the Children’s Commissioner’s call for children under 12 to be considered differently in the rules about meeting outdoors.

Signed

Alice Ferguson and Ingrid Skeels, Playing Out
Paul Hocker, London Play
Anita Grant, Play England
Dr Wendy Russell, University of Gloucestershire
Adrian Voce OBE, Playful Planet
Professor Alison Stenning, Newcastle University
Dr Helen Dodd, Playfirst UK / University of Reading
Dr Jenny Wood, A Place in Childhood
Ben Tawil and Mike Barclay, Ludicology
Tim Gill, Independent researcher and writer on childhood
Meynell Walter, International Play Association England
Michael Follett, Outdoor Play and Learning
Carley Sefton, Learning through Landscapes
Helen Griffiths, Fields in Trust
Mark E Hardy, Association of Play Industries
David Yearley, Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
Rob Wheway, Children’s Play Advisory Service
Professor David Ball, Middlesex University
Stevie Edge-McKee, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust
Dr Sunil Bhopal, Newcastle University

Further signatories to be added

It’s pizza all round for three London adventure playgrounds that kept the spirit of adventure play alive during the ongoing pandemic.

[London Play press release]

Three London adventure playgrounds that went to extraordinary lengths to keep children playing – and in some cases, fed too – during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic were yesterday announced as joint winners of the coveted London Adventure Playground of the Year Award. Excited children and staff at Triangle and Max Roach Adventure Playgrounds in Lambeth and Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground heard the news via a premiere on London Play’s YouTube channel.

Usually celebrated in noisy style with hundreds of children at the Prince Charles Cinema excited to see their own films about the places they play on the big screen, this year’s online event was very different. But the message – that play, and adventure playgrounds in particular, are vital for children’s wellbeing and happiness – endures, and has, if anything, been amplified by circumstances which have seen children’s right and opportunities to play curtailed like never before.

There is no doubt that it has been a challenge for adventure playgrounds, whose ethos is open, tactile and very much ‘hands on’, to adapt their services to the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Located in neighbourhoods where families are more likely to be living in flats with no open space and in potentially challenging circumstances – being forced to close their gates on these children was difficult.  But adapt they did, and the three winning playgrounds stood out for their innovative approaches, demonstrated in the films they submitted as their award entries and in their stories from a summer like no other.

From Monday 14 September, it will be illegal in England, apart from at school or work or under other few exceptions, for someone to meet more than five other people at a time.

The government is due to publish more detail on what those exceptions are over the coming days, and London Play will examine this closely before updating our guidance on what the new laws mean for play streets.

However, as far as we are aware, there is no plan at present to close public playgrounds. Given that in legal terms, play streets are simply temporary playgrounds, London Play’s view is that under the new rules play streets should still be able to proceed, with a few minor adjustments.  Children need to play – now more than ever – and a play street is one of the safer options for them to exercise their right to do so.

As always, it is ultimately up to residents and organisers to decide whether they feel comfortable to proceed with their play street plans; and also bear in mind that the situation is liable to change at short notice. For those that decide to go ahead, we would advise as follows:

• As per our previous guidance, the emphasis should be on creating traffic free streets for play; and not on community gathering.  The sharing of food and drink is discouraged.

• Organisers should ensure that all those participating are aware of the ‘rule of six’ and the potential for fines to be handed to those who do not comply;

• Organisers should also make clear that, as usual, adults on a play street are responsible for themselves and their children.  Therefore they are also responsible for ensuring that they and their children do not gather in groups of more than six while the play street is in session.

To help organisers make clear where the responsibility for complying with government legislation lies, London Play has a produced an adaptable A4 poster which can be laminated and affixed to lamp posts during the play street session or posted through residents’ letterboxes in advance. Download it here.

Play streets taking place over the weekend 12/13 September can proceed under the existing guidelines. We will update our play street guidance once the detail of the new legislation has been published.

The Cabinet Office statement on the new rule of six is here.

London Play’s guidance for post lockdown play streets is here.