Boys dominating the playground

[Namechangeforthiss]

I’ve noticed at DD’s school the enclosed, paved playground is quite dominated by boys playing their (rough!) games in the middle. Meanwhile the girls mill around the edges, seemingly a bit nervous to even cross it, let alone join in. I’ve noticed the boys also seem to feel more ‘entitled’ to play equipment as well as the playground space and will be quite rough and jostle past if a girl tries to play on it.

Do you think playgrounds should be halved, not to segregate by sex (and both sexes should be encouraged to join in any game they want) but to save some space for children who want to play less physical/rough games?

Feel free to tell me I’m being precious! (I have a son as well, not smug girl mum complaining about boys, but he’s only 1!).

Yes I’m sure the girls love being confined to the margins of the playground with no room to do anything.

you’ll change your mind when your son is 5,6,7 . I did when I just had a dd. I get your argument but now think equity does mean giving boys a bit more space as the games they play need more space. If girls organically played massive team games with a ball then my opinion would change again. But they generally don’t. Space isn’t the criteria for girls play time activities so find out what they do want and supply it

It’s not about being a boy or a girl. It’s about some children dominating the space by running around and shouting while those children who want to be quiet don’t have a space to do that.

What about the child who wants to chat/draw/play a quiet game? Do they need to change? Are they ‘childing’ wrong because they aren’t running around?

But the child wanting to chat, draw etc doesn’t need space. They need tables, benches, maybe a nice peaceful area. So let the runaround kids have space and let the sit down kids have a smaller but suited to them space too.

I don’t think instantly ushering them into a much larger space while the girls are confined to a tiny one ‘because they need it’ is a good life lesson going forwards. Look at the random man thread and see how men feel entitled to take up public space at the expense of women - it starts somewhere doesn’t it? There’s finite space in the playground and I disagree one group of children should be entitled to the lions share because they ‘need’ it.

But the girls DO run around. So many depressing assumptions that all the girls want to to do is chit chat and colour. The girls play tag and other games like that, they just don’t want to be smashed into or take a ball to the head. And that’s fair enough. Why shouldn’t they have equal space to run around?

As I said come back when you have a5/6/7 year old boy that does need to let off steam at playtime to help concentration during lessons. You might feel differently then about who “needs” space. I thought exactly like you when I had a quiet dd ( who didn’t need “space”
then I had a runaround son

You are really overthinking this non issue. The quiet kids that want to draw or play board games have always had an indoor space to spend lunchtimes at any of the schools I have ever known.

Life is made up of all different types of people and the sooner kids learn that the better. Real life doesn't make allowances to accommodate the minority... scratch that it never used to, but we are heading that way in all realms of society and it has created an entitled snowflake generation.

They do have equal space. There is one space that is accessible to ALL, how the children decide to use it is their choice.

Oh please. Why aren’t the girls insist on using 90% of the space for their game of tag? I think we know.

Very interesting. The other day me and my DD (year 7) decided to go on Google maps and look at her school playground from an aerial view as I had never seen it and she mentioned that had about 3 football pitches. We then looked at her primary school and few of her friends schools. Her primary had lots of hubs, they also had a football pitch or “cage” they also had a grass area which seemed to be were most of the girls played. They also had this wooden shack which a few girls from her year group in year 5 helped to raise. They have a section for the younger children. DD spent a lot of playtime with friends and doing cartwheels. She didn’t really complain too much.

Growing up (primary school in the 90s/00s) we had one big playground, boys usually played football - although they were alright when the girls joined (I remembered being a goal keeper a few times haha). When I left they introduced a stage (as a few girls - more than boys - spent playtime making up dances).

I think having different sections as opposed to one big large playground makes such a huge difference. One of my biggest fears as a secondary school girl was having my face hit by the ball - which again, only boys would play and girls didn’t get involved in sport at playtime. I wonder if that’s different in single sex schools.

It takes alot of advocating for, unless it’s on the headteachers agenda. But I have noticed the importance of a decent playground with different sections to suite different needs.

Girls aren’t there as support aids for boys. They deserve their own space and to not feel they always have to step aside to let boys dominate.

This is really interesting... I did my degree dissertation (about 20 years ago) on gendered spaces in the primary playground and it's definitely a thing! Where I teach we do have a quieter zone with construction toys and small world play etc under a canopy which helps a bit. And we have certain days for football / other ball games/ no ball games. But the main playground space is still mostly taken up by children racing round, and they are often boys. I'm not sure what the answer is!

The problem is that football takes up a lot of space. It simply isn't possible to play it in a small one. Most other playground activities only need a fraction of the space.
If the playground is large, some of these ideas will work, but many town schools or older Victorian ones have very limited space.

I don't agree with playground split by sex. My eldest was one of the footballers, and totally accepted and integrated into the games on the playground and in the school football team. My friend's son hated physicality and hung out with the girls.

The 'cage' for ball games is the ideal, but what primary school has the funding to install one?

As the mum of a girl who plays football yabu, the space is there for anyone, just because most the girls don't want to join in isn't the problem. My dd always played with the boys at primary

@saraclara for goodness sake my OP specifically says I don’t want sex segregation. How many more times must I say this?!

If football can’t be played in a smaller area then it shouldn’t be played at all. If the girls came up with a game tomorrow which took up equal amount of space, and said therefore the boys would just have to squeeze in around the edges, do you think the boys and their parents would just shrug and say fair enough? Of course they wouldn’t. That’s why this is, at its heart, sexist - the same consideration would never be applied in reverse.

Do we? Care to enlighten us.

But why should football specifically always be the game that takes up all the room? What if they don’t want to play football and need space for another game? This obsession with football being the only possible pastime in the playground is bizarre.

I used to work at a primary school and did playground duty daily.
I would agree with your observations on the whole, particularly when a ball is thrown into the mix.

So your solution is to stop kids who like football and running around from doing so because it takes up too much space (in your opinion) just so the handful of kids who play quieter games that require less space anyway can have more space they don't need for their games. In your quest to be inclusive you would be excluding the majority.

Either you haven’t read my posts or you have comprehension issues.

Because football is the most popular sport in this country and many others. The real bizarre thing here is you thinking you can dictate what games kids like to play.

Yes I agree with you namechangeforthiss in the infants school they were only allowed to play football on the field not the playground but small balls were always used as footballs on the playground and all children were told not to kick them

even football games on the field were just played by boys, games of tag and other group games tended to be played by boys and girls but usually in different sex groups

No school I’ve ever worked in has an indoor space for quiet play.

I don’t like the message this sends children.
If you want to crash about and piss people off, that’s fine, they just have to deal with that. Everyone else has to tolerate it without complaint.

When i was ref for these games bearing in mind it was a field and a ball my favourite part would be when a very earnest 4 year old would come up to me and tell me it was offside 😀