that's a genius idea - playground on the roof!

[UniqueAndAmazing]

just watching breakfast tv and they're doing a report on a london primary school that has built a playground on the roof.
what a genius idea!

it's extra outside space, it's something that would otherwise be useless.
I bet a lot of the newer buildings could do that - the ones with flat rooves.
they could make them playgrounds or evenlittle gardens - the gardens would mean that education would get added in.

I love it!

[shockers]

I was just coming on to say there is one at St John's in Blackpool! Doesn't Devonshire Rd have an 'upstairs' playground as well as the ground level one too?

[Limelight]

There's one at DS's school. Again in London. Only the older kids are allowed to at up there (years 5 and 6) and so it has MASSIVE status. My yr1 DS looks enviously skywards at it every morning when I take him to school.

[mrz]

but not heights (or even lows) with my vertigo

[mrz]

I like spiders

[Feenie]

Ok, you definitely win

Where do you stand with spiders?

[mrz]

I can't stand on a chair

[Feenie]

I am not great standing on chairs

[mrz]

feenie I can't look out of upstairs windows

[Feenie]

I am a scaredy-cat heights person too, but it's fine unless you stand next to the barrier - it's only see through from about waist height so I feel quite safe! I am sure it's always at least two degrees colder on the roof though...

[mrz]

I couldn't do playground duty on the roof with a see through barrier [horror]

[whiteandyellowiris]

really tired don't think much to that one, they bang on about getting children outside, then stick a bloody great canopy over the top, so they might well be near enough be inside....

[Feenie]

Yes, it's fine - the see through barrier is quite high and KS1 play up there.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

Herring that sounds great :)

[UniqueAndAmazing]

ReallyTired - yes, that fence looks higher and safer, too :)

[UniqueAndAmazing]

feenie and nlondondad - does it work?

[UniqueAndAmazing]

yes, i didn't like the fence.

a better fence would be unclimbable and 6ft high.

[TheHerringScreams]

Our DC's London primary school has that. There are 840 pupils I think, and they have little space. There are two 'blocks' for Infant and Junior but inside the same school, it's just for easiness. Incredibly high and secure fencing, and they have turf and it's like a nice normal playground. They have stairs to get there, and a lift in case of wheelchairs and Reception children usually go up in the lift too. Fantastic idea. They're knocking down some council owned buildings which shall become art of the school next year. They plan to expand it by adding another 190 pupils but they'll also have a rooftop playground on a new block, which they're going to have specifically for Upper Juniors (Yr5 and6) and they'll have a bit of field. Great scheme for us in a built up area, safe, lovely, fun.

[ReallyTired]

This playground looks good.

www.ridgeford.com/media-centre/06-07-12/Marylebone_schoolchildren_get_new_canopy_for_rooftop_playground.aspx

I suppose that the school would need a lift to allow disabled chidlren to get to the playground.

[Patchouli]

Where do you line up for fire drill then?

[mummytime]

I know of a prison in the US with its exercise yard on the roof! It is a very secure area.

[bigTillyMint]

There are quite a few with rooftop playgrounds - I know the one in Covent Garden as our friends live next to it

[YoniMcShoni]

I went to a Victorian primary school that had an upstairs(girls) playground.
Not a roof.
It was over the downstairs (boys) playground .

There was a reasonably high wall around it but the wall was lined with benches which we stood on . All the better to watch the comings and goings of the pub behind the school. I dont think anyone ever came to grief in that playground .

Possibly the worst part was the single toilet in the corner -for about 100 children

[LondonJax]

The primary school I went to in inner London had a playground on the roof. It was built in the early 1900s so the boys played on the roof and the girls played in the ground floor playground in those days (when you also had a separate entrance for boys and girls). By the time I went to the school we obviously mixed and when I was about 7 years old I remember a boy in my class lobing a football over the fence, it fell the three or four floors and almost killed the headmistress! We were banned from the roof from then on...