Playground Survey

To quickly get a clear picture of how teachers, students and parents view our playground we used an online survey. This was opened up through the blog site.

Our survey is closed and ran for about four months. In total, we received 260 completed surveys. Of these, 111 (43%) were completed by children, 100 (37%) by parents of the school, 17 (6%) by teachers, and 32 (12%) by external parties (grandparents, supporters, etc.). The insights that emerged from the survey were essential to start shaping our future playground.

In the first part of the survey, we gauged the importance of some topics such as security, sports infrastructure,…

Here 1 is not important, 2 less important, 3 no opinion, 4 important and 5 very important.

We see that in terms of safety, there is a great desire to make the play area safe. That is why the prevention officer of the school has been involved from the start of the project. He will also be consulted throughout the project.

There is a clear demand for more greenery on the playground. What exactly this should be does not become clear with this question. It does, however, encourage active thinking about it.

Survey participants want a stimulating play environment that challenges children. This is an important aspect in the design of our playground.

From the survey it is clear that there is a difference between parents of young children at the school and the parents of older children or the older children themselves. Parents of young children indicate that they sometimes find the playground dangerous and crowded. Therefore, a conscious division of zones is recommended and as a school we should also think about the times of day when play takes place.

A majority of participants ask for sports infrastructure on the playground. What exactly this should be is not clear with this question. This will be addressed later.

For this question, you can see that the bars are suddenly no longer tiered toward very important. More than half of the participants do not think that learning on the playground is important or have no opinion about it. Therefore, there is no clarity in this question about what playground learning might look like. The question perhaps makes it clear that learning in the school sense of the word is less important on the playground.

In part 2 of the survey, we wanted to find out what types of play should be covered on our playground.

Clearly all of the game forms offered are rated as important. Only with the question around getting dirty is there some doubt. This is also a question that raises doubts in the teacher corps. It only challenges to look for ways to overcome this threshold. Other schools have found solutions to this that might be applied in our school as well.

In the final part of survey, we wanted to find out what play elements are desired on our future playground:

It is clear that none of the elements of play provoke resistance. Only about keeping a vegetable garden, animals at the school, the play store and the willow tunnel is there slightly less agreement. This could be because these items were not clear to the participants or because there was no interest in them. A survey among the teachers showed that keeping a vegetable garden is not a priority at the school because it can cause a lot of practical problems.

This by no means means means that the school should not focus on greenery that the children can learn from such as berries, herbs, fruits, etc.

We also asked some open-ended questions of the participants. These were tallied by target group and we are happy to present the top 3 by target group.

Question: What is fun on the playground now?

Students’ top 3:

1. The lawn
2. The soccer
3. The step hills

Parents’ top 3:

1. The play equipment
2. Lots of space
3. The lawn

Teachers’ top 3:

1. The lawn
2. The play equipment
3. The bicycles

The top 3 sympathizers:

1. The playground
2. The lawn
3. The steppe hills

With this question, it becomes clear that the things that are present now such as the grass field, the playground equipment and some play elements such as the step hills and the soccer field are important to the participants. Therefore, in the design we need to find a place for this.

Question: What’s not to like on the playground?

Students’ top 3:

1. No playground equipment for the elderly
2. Little to do
3. Peeing on the playground

Parents’ top 3:

1. Too little green space
2. Little to do
3. Layout

Teachers’ top 3:

1. Lack of variation
2. Little to do
3. Too much concrete

The top 3 sympathizers:

1. Too much concrete
2. puddles
3. Little variation

The lack of variety in play forms and elements leads participants to complain about a lack of variety. The appearance of the playground is also an important issue. Too much concrete block and not enough greenery is an eyesore for the participants. The puddles that exist on the playground during rainfall are a result of the poor construction of some parts of the playground. When redesigning, this should be addressed or integrated into, for example, an area where water can be worked with.