BLOGS

4 Key Features for a New Playground

EYFS Playground with race track markings and active play equipment

Playgrounds are an integral part of a child’s educational journey. Play has an essential role in encouraging life skills, creativity, and social skills. Long gone are the days of hard, unforgiving, expensive-to-maintain tarmac. Instead, today’s new playground design promotes safe, friendly, children-centric areas where creative play is encouraged and supported. 

Safety Features

Colourful yellow and blue EPDM pathway against artificial grass surfacing
Skinned knees or broken bones from falling on tarmac or asphalt are not acceptable, not when there are much safer alternatives to lay a playground surface. Today’s modern playground surfaces are durable, safe, easy to maintain, and fun for children to play on. Depending on what the space is for, you can place combinations of these softer, more cushioned surfaces in the playground. Surfaces that include:
  • Artificial grass and grass mats
  • Play sand
  • Bonded rubber mulch
  • Wetpour surfacing

Areas For Lessons & Meals Outside

Eating together is an early social interaction children can enjoy. Providing a place for children to chat or eat their packed lunch together outside encourages interactive life skills and fun. You can use economical and simple benches. Maybe consider adding a canopy or sail shade to add some weather protection.

For younger children, role play panels can be useful tools to introduce them to common real-world ideas like different kinds of shops, train stations, or even doctors. Build a whole town for a varied role play environment with a combination of shops and counter panels for children to explore and choose their favourites.

For a more unstructured space for role play and storytelling, playground stages and reading corners are a great way for children to enjoy a different aspect of play time, or for outdoor classroom activities.

Outdoor classroom- extended hexagonal
Taking lessons outside doesn’t have to be an occasional treat. At The School Playground Company, we offer several options to act as an outdoor classroom, these include
  • Gazebos
  • Shepherd’s Huts
  • Yurts
  • Hobbit Houses & dens (great for imaginative play as well)

Alongside being a great alternative to being taught indoors, all these structures provide bad-weather play areas, reducing the number of indoor break times. They also provide shelter when it’s chilly or a bit damp.

Areas For Lessons & Meals Outside

Creative play is when intelligence is having fun, encouraging creativity and stimulation is what our school playgrounds should be about. Free expression, the opportunity to be themselves and let their imaginations flow, helps nurture a child’s emotional well-being. The range of sensory and creative play equipment available from The School Playground Company includes musical play and play panels that stimulate a child’s imagination in exciting ways.

Sensory play panels mounted on playground fence

Areas To Let Off Steam

Eating together is an early social interaction children can enjoy. Providing a place for children to chat or eat their packed lunch together outside encourages interactive life skills and fun. You can use economical and simple benches. Maybe consider adding a canopy or sail shade to add some weather protection.

For younger children, role play panels can be useful tools to introduce them to common real-world ideas like different kinds of shops, train stations, or even doctors. Build a whole town for a varied role play environment with a combination of shops and counter panels for children to explore and choose their favourites.

For a more unstructured space for role play and storytelling, playground stages and reading corners are a great way for children to enjoy a different aspect of play time, or for outdoor classroom activities.

EYFS Child dangling from the climbing elements of their trim trail
Children need to let off all that excess energy. So what better than to combine it with fun and imaginative climbing units, activity trails, and balancing items? Check out the variety of equipment that SPC has to offer, including:
  • Trim trails
  • Clamber stacks
  • Climbing towers
  • Play frames
  • Climbing walls
Children playing football on MUGA at Nene Valley
TSPC also provides several sports and fitness options to make sports a lot more fun including,
  • Football & Basketball Goals
  • Outdoor Fitness Equipment
  • Multi-Use Games Areas
  • Sports Surfacing
  • Daily Mile Tracks

Work with us to design the playground that meets your needs and budget.

The equipment at TSPC is compliant with BS EN 1176/77 standard and is of the highest specifications. We can adapt to whatever size of playground you require providing you and the children with an exciting, safe, and creative play space. With our 25 years of experience in designing stimulating learning environments, we can help you make the most of your playground space.

Get in touch with us to discuss your requirements.