Inquiry report calls on the Government to restore school playtime amid warning that play is being squeezed out of children’s lives

The Raising the Nation Play Commission, a year-long independent inquiry into why play is critical to the wellbeing of children in England, is today (Monday February 24^th) publishing its Interim Report, ‘State of Play'.  The Commission was launched in June 2024 by its chair, entrepreneur and campaigner Paul Lindley OBE - founder of Ella's Kitchen, the UK's biggest baby food business. It is working in partnership with former Children's Commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield's Centre for Young Lives think tank.

Today's Interim Report lays down foundations for a Play Strategy for England to be proposed to the Government in the Commission's final report in June. It both highlights the significant barriers preventing children in England from playing, including a reduction in school playtime, and proposes solutions to Government to make play an integral part of growing up again.

The report argues a National Play Strategy is more urgent than ever, with around four in ten children living with an unhealthy weight, more than a quarter of children overweight (including obese), one in five children and young people in England struggling with a diagnosable mental health problem, and around one in three children not school ready.

The report highlights how:

• Time spent playing outdoors has declined by 50% in a generation and fewer than three in ten children say that they play out on the street.
• At least 400 playgrounds, and probably more, closed across England between 2012-22.
• Over 2m children in England up to age 9 don't live within a ten-minute walk of a playground.
• The annual park budgets for England fell by more than £350 million between 2011-23.
• Spending on play facilities across England fell by 44% between 2017/18 and 2020/21.
• The distance children are allowed to roam at the age of eight has been estimated to have fallen from six miles to just 300 yards over four generations.

The report warns that while play provides huge benefits to children, including improved memory and problem-solving skills, developing social skills like self-regulation and negotiation, better mental and physical health, and boosting school readiness and learning, millions of children in England are missing out on the opportunity to play.

Among the barriers to play highlighted in the report are the decline in the number of places children can play, less time being spent playing outside and at home, the rise of traffic on streets, the increase in housing developments without spaces to play, and a growing ‘anti-play' ‘No Ball Games' culture that sees outdoor play as a nuisance or intimidating.

The report also reveals how, despite the immense benefits of breaktimes to children's development and learning, play time has been squeezed out of the school day over a 25-year period. It analyses four national surveys carried out in 1995, 2006, 2017, and 2021, shared with the Play Commission, which show the significant decline in average total breaktime in minutes per week in England's schools between 1995 and 2021.

Average total breaktime in minutes per week in England's schools across four national surveys

The report shows how the youngest school children in England lost 23 minutes breaktime a week on average compared to their counterparts in 1995. The average total time dedicated to breaktime in a week fell by 18 minutes over the same period for older primary school children, and by 17 minutes for Key Stage 3 children.  

It also shows how breaktimes have fallen most sharply in primary schools in the most deprived parts of England. Schools with a higher proportion of children in receipt of Free School Meals have shorter breaktimes. While state secondary schools have seen a significant fall in breaktime, there has been no discernible decline in the time devoted to play in England's private schools since 1995.

The report argues that an overbearing national curriculum and highly pressurised accountability system has led many schools and teachers to view breaktimes as nothing more than a loss of valuable teaching time.  It also warns that many schools are punitively withholding breaktimes from children for behavioural reasons.

‘State of the Nation' makes a range of evidence-based recommendations to Government to reverse the loss of play time in schools, including:

• Calling on Government to establish the first National Play Strategy for England since 2008 led by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. The strategy would set out a clear, long-term vision to ensure children can easily access and enjoy places to play in public, at school, and at home.
• New statutory Department for Education guidance to ringfence time within the school day for breaktimes and lunchtimes, and support for The British Psychological Society's call for an extra 10 minutes of play to be restored to the school day.
• Ofsted to include play sufficiency – specifically time to play - as a measure of school performance to encourage schools to boost play in school time and reward those schools who value play highly.

• School teachers, staff, and supervisors to receive high-quality and mandatory play training to enable healthy and active breaktimes and playful learning.
• Ringfenced funding for local authorities to maintain and renovate playgrounds and provide new ones in playground deserts.
• The adoption of a legally binding Play Sufficiency Duty for England, bringing England into line with Scotland and Wales, to ensure that local authorities provide sufficient play opportunities and to communicate them to parents and families.

• A Review of the use of ‘No Ball Games' signs and update byelaws for Parks and Open Spaces to create a more welcoming, heathier, and active environment.
• A national campaign to encourage and support parents to play with their children, as part of the drive to improve school readiness.

Paul Lindley OBE, Chair of the Raising the Nation Play Commission, said: 

“Play should be a crucial part of growing up. It improves development, physical and mental health, social skills, and school readiness.

“Yet our Commission has heard countless examples of how England's children are missing out on the same play opportunities that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

“An anti-play, ‘No Ball Games' culture has emerged. Hundreds of playgrounds have closed, half of all youth centres have gone, school playing fields have been sold. Our streets and public spaces feel less safe, and children are losing hours of play time at school every month.

“We can't continue to watch as our children become increasingly unhealthy and unhappy.

“Play is a crucial tool for reversing the growing number of children with obesity, mental ill health, and developmental problems. It's time to get our children playing again.”

Baroness Anne Longfield CBE, Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives and former Children's Commissioner for England, said:

“Generations of children are now growing up spending less time playing, less time outside, less time with their friends, and more time inside, glued to phones and social media. Play is being squeezed out of their lives, and the consequences for their mental and physical health, and their development, are dire.

“I welcome the Government's focus on widening opportunities for children and improving school readiness. This interim report puts forward positive, workable, evidence-based proposals to support those aims, including a cross-Government National Play Strategy for England that would boost those ambitions.”   

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The Raising the Nation Play Commission's ‘State of Play' Interim Report is available here.

1. The Raising the Nation Play Commission is chaired by entrepreneur and author, Paul Lindley OBE, in partnership with Baroness Anne Longfield CBE, the Executive Chair and Co-Founder of the Centre for Young Lives. Launched in June 2024, the Play Commission has convened 20 expert commissioners alongside Paul and Anne to spark a national conversation about how to encourage and support children and families in England to play more. There has been no national play policy since the outgoing Labour Government's Play Strategy was abandoned in 2010. Through the lens of seven themes, the commission is investigating the benefits of and barriers to play through a call for written evidence, oral evidence sessions with expert witnesses, a series of visits, and by consulting children, young people, and families. This interim report is published following seven months of evidence-gathering and focuses on three key themes: learning through play, places to play, and time to play.