Improve school grounds

Published on Wednesday 10 December 2008 20:13

With recent press announcements that Scotland's largest local authority, Glasgow, is to encourage healthy eating in schools by banning pupils from leaving the grounds at lunch time, it is an important time to consider the environment we confine our children to.

While healthy eating is an issue that needs to be addressed, children must be provided with a safe, fun and pleasant outdoor environment at break time – one that offers seating, shelter and options for active play and access to natural space. Sadly, many urban secondary school grounds are bleak and unwelcoming. Studies show children interpret the quality of their school grounds as an indication of the extent to which they are valued by the school. Forcibly detaining them in poor-quality school grounds indicates we neither trust them nor value their wellbeing. The win-win approach is to make school grounds places pupils want to stay in.

ALASTAIR SEAMAN

Grounds for Learning

Tullibody Road

Alloa, Clackmannanshire