The UK’s leading school playground company, Playforce, is to develop new outdoor sports facilities for nearly forty primary schools in Birmingham, Bristol, Cornwall, London and Wiltshire.
Sport England has awarded over £1.1 million of National Lottery-funded contracts to Playforce to help schools with little outside space for children to take part in PE, sport and active play.
A variety of equipment including Multi Use Games spaces, activity surfacing, goal ends, shelters and climbing walls will be installed at 37 schools over coming months. Each new space is designed to ensure that pupils have access to good quality, multi-functional spaces to keep active. In most cases, extra-curricular sports clubs and the wider school and local community will also benefit from the developments.
Playforce Managing Director, Tim Lacey said: “It’s great to be working with primary schools across the country to improve children’s physical literacy. Recent research amongst our customers found that investment in school playgrounds not only increases children’s physical activity but improves behaviour, attitudes to learning, happiness and well-being too.”
Playforce has transformed the outdoor facilities of nearly 70 schools across the country since the launch of Sport England’s Primary Spaces initiative in 2013. It has led the sector in recent years with research on childhood obesity, physical activity in schools and the impact of the 2012 Olympic Games on young people’s desire to take part in sport and PE, and is the Youth Sport Trust’s exclusive Business Honours Club Partner for playground equipment and facilities.
Playforce is also an active member of the Association of Play Industries (API), the UK’s leading play sector trade body, which campaigns at the highest levels for policy recognition of the value of active play.