What makes a great Primary School Playground

[Twigless]

What equipment / surfaces / whatever goes to make a great playground for a primary school

Well the highlight of dds playground are 2 shetland ponies and Basil the goat, but I appreciate that not every school would want them...

Barked areas, or 'posh springy tarmac' for areas with climbing equipment, for supervised play.
Benches for quiet time, pergolas or something similar for shade in the summer.
Painted on playground games in bright colours..eg.hopscotch etc..
Areas children can grow plants and care for them.
Sounds like my ideal school!

A "field"

somegwere that is not windswpet
somewhere that kids can sit and chat comfortably without the threat of being knocked out by footballs

DS's school redesigned their playground in last year or 2. Besides lots of green fields --

There's a maze bit; they can walk around on raised planks of wood, or inbetween the raised wood, to the centre of the maze. It's under cover, too, so they can gather there if it rains.

There's a musical instruments bit. Features an old guitar, and lots of metal things and plastic pipes they can bang together to make semi-musical sounds.

There's a separate gravelly area for the very littlest children. Long snakes drawn on pavement with letters or numbers written on them.

And other bits, but I'm new to the school so haven't taken it all in, yet.

Seats with an area under cover. Visited a school in France once which had a big area under the school, well ground floor really, that was open to the playground side. The kids could sit and talk, and there were also toilet facilities going off from there, plus some games tables too. That would be ace if we had an area like that at my school!

At DS1s school, Reception have their own, enclosed playground and are not allowed in the main playground. Y1 have their own bit too but can go into the main bit or retreat into their little patch if it's too much.

OK .. how about if you could have anything you wanted in your child's primary school playground

what do you think would make it superb?

shameless bump

our old playground had to levels - one was for ball games the other had under cover benchs and it was really nice to get away from for boys.

we also had a big playing field but that was only used lunch

my daughters school has different playgrounds for differnt ages kids. her has a soft surface with a bit to run around in, a seperate climbing frame area, with swings and slide etc. and a maze wotsit