Playground Creation Process

Information relating to EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) and Ofsted


  • Play should be at the heart of children’s everyday lives and experiences throughout childhood. We want children to enjoy a healthy balance of structured and unstructured play in their leisure time.

  • The right to play is set out in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK Government in December 1991, and in the UK five outcomes for all children’s services defined in Every Child Matters: being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic well-being.

  • Children want a variety of places to play and to be consulted and involved in the development of attractive, exciting and welcoming places.

  • Children’s well-being, safety, learning and social development, as well as their essential enjoyment of childhood, are effected by the extent and the quality of their opportunities to play.

  • Good design is a good investment.

  • Designs must strike the right balance between providing safe play and allowing children to learn about managing risk. By experiencing risk in this way, children and young people will learn about keeping themselves safe, not just whilst playing but in other aspects of their lives.

  • Play is about more than just ‘letting off steam’; it can be quiet and contemplative, as well as active and boisterous.

  • All children and young people, including those who are disabled or have specific needs, should have opportunities to experience challenge and take risks while playing.

  • Play is essential to the healthy development of children and young people – not just their physical development, but their social and cognitive development too.

  • Playing allows children to develop a sense of well-being, develops their emotional responses and improves their interpersonal skills. It involves exploration and creativity, helping children think in a flexible manner, developing the creative process, language skills, and learning and problem solving skills. (DCSF:2008a)

  • Play is essential to children and young people’s physical, social and cognitive development. Outdoor play is particularly valuable as it provides unique opportunities to experience the elements and because of the sense of well-being and enjoyment that being outdoors can bring. Access to the outdoors also gives children more space to move freely and run around.

  • Successful play spaces offer movement and physical activity with space and features that allow a range of energetic and strength building play ex building play experiences.

  • Successful play spaces stimulate the five senses maybe providing access to music and sound, and different smells made by plants and leaves.

  • Successful play spaces are good places for social interactions allowing children to choose whether and when to play alone or with others, to negotiate, co-operate, compete and resolve conflicts.

  • Successful play spaces allow children to manipulate natural and fabricated materials, use tools, and have access to bits and pieces of all kinds.