KOMPAN

School age 6 - 12 years old - The golden age of development

School age kids are physically proportioned more or less like adults. Their language skills still increase and their social patterns mature. Not only do they master role play; rules play gets to play the main role. Children this age love competitions, love to win – and learn to lose. To school children the distance to the recent preschool age is enormous. School children consider themselves BIG. Activities for this age group should signal that. These children like to show of, and provided they have developed normally till now, they are increasingly agile, physically as well as socially.

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The school age is commonly held the golden age of childhood. Provided the children developed  normally till now, they will be able to do and learn almost anything. Physically the children now  have the same proportions as adults. Their proprioception and sense of balance peaks in these years. It was previously held true, that if you wanted healthy adults you have to give the teenagers good habits.

Nowadays we know, that good physical/sportive habits begins in the age of 6 - 12, as do so many other things. This, for one, will be a period of our lives we remember quite well as adults, whereas the earlier periods are usually remembered in spots. In language development the six-year-old will be able to speak fluently and choose words. This means a widening of the ability to play more children together. 6-12 master the experience, because they have learned basic roles and patterns of behaviour, cause and effect, up till now. Now they can concentrate on rules.

There are some specifics for this age group generally. But there are also some trends, which are typical for the contemporary society. For instance children of today seem to mature earlier than before. They seem to have a teenage behaviour earlier than before, have pop-idols on their walls, listen to pop music, which their parents like as well. European schoolyards of today might vary in size looks. But a substantial number of them have one thing in common:  they do not vary that much from the past   20-40 years ago children knew how to play with nothing -  or just a street crayon found on their way to school. Why should we change schoolyards of today, when they worked for us?  After all, school is just about academic skills, isn’t it ?

Tweenies
One of the changes was welfare. A demanding number of tweenies (8–14 year olds) have more and more pocket money to spend. In England tweenies are said to possess 2.7 billion dollars a year in pocket money, to be used on (digital) toys, music or snacks.  In other words, the playground faces hard competition on the time usage of young kids from the media/entertainment industry. (See note 1)

 This pecuniary independency of our children is followed by the fact that kids grow older younger.  Their growth spurt and puberty occurs earlier but they also take over teenage culture at an earlier stage. Thus tweenies need  good excuses for physical play, as play is perceived as childish behavior. This is a huge challenge not only for the play equipment industry but even more so for our societies, as obesity and cardiovascular weaknesses are increasing at a scaring rate, and lack of movement is a main reason for this. (See note 2)

School yards as culture carriers
The challenge of getting children in motion has to be taken up by schools, as schools are not only learning environments for academic skills any longer,  but play a major role in the socialization of our children. The school is the biggest culture carrier for our kids. In this sense a quick look at schoolyard playgrounds in Europe is rather discouraging.

Most have quite nice sports fields, mainly possessed by the over 10 year old boys playing football. The activities for the 5 -10 year olds are limited to a swing set or some old combination system with few physical challenges. The girls above 10 have no or few challenges. From a child perspective, a valid conclusion of the state of the schoolyard area is that play is not important.

Use it or lose it!
Luckily, some schools are investing more time and money in their outdoor play areas, as it is getting common knowledge that learning skills are connected to physical skills. An active lifestyle with play, motion and athletics makes the human being alert and healthy.  Cerebellum, or the minor brain, coordinates our cognitive processes AND our gross motor skills, and cerebellum changes most in the teenage years.  This gives good reason to believe that by having young people move more, they will be better learners, too.

With the words of Dr. Jay Giedd, chief of the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, USA:

The recess and play seems to be the first thing that is cut out of school curriculums in tight times. But those actually may be as important, or maybe even more important, than some of the academic subjects that the children are doing. ... We think that the "Use it or lose it" principle holds for the cerebellum as well. If the cerebellum is exercised and used, both for physical activity but also for cognitive activities, that it will enhance its development.”(See note 3)


The International School of Amsterdam
The International School of Amsterdam has taken a major leap into schoolyard play and learning environments. Being a new school with an anthroposophy architecture the whole school area is highly inviting. Mrs. Evelyn Van Ramshorst, a teacher in the International School,  was appointed playground coordinator and took on the task of creating a playground which in the end turned out a play and learning environment. Mrs. Van Ramshorst took up contact with KOMPAN Play Institute consultant in Holland, Jan Ooms and their work resulted in a breathtaking playground for 2 – 16 year olds, which can be warmly recommended for a study of a play heaven on earth.

The school yard is divided into an inner and several outer yards.  The closed inner yard is mainly for children up to 6 with theme and sand play corners and vegetation from all continents.  A lot of cause-and-effect play items are placed in the middle of the yard along a paved pathway.

The outer yards is grouped into areas for different age stages from 6 and up. There is the classic swing area, wisely parted a bit from the other play areas by bushes, a lot of themed activity equipment and a smaller ball play area for the up to 12 year olds. 

There is a high activity KOMPAN GALAXY playground for the 8-12yearolds with loads of spinning, balancing and climbing activities to train and refine the above 6 yearolds’ sense of balance and coordination.

As creativity and fantasy is an important part of play also for the above 6 yearolds, a big adventure forest area is made with a wobbly bridge over a stream of water.

Finally the school has a rarely, but suitably, big area for the above 12yearolds: The ball field is fenced by a net and on the outside there are different areas of  teenage meeting points with work out-hang out equipment, used a lot by the girls when they watch the boys play ball.  This division is clever, as we know that girls statistically do not use the schoolyards as much as the boys in the teenage years, for more reasons. One important reason being, that there is no room for girl behavior.  In The International School of Amsterdam that is not so!

The International School of Amsterdam is an uncommon example of an enormous investments in the schoolyard play areas. But it is also an example that the investment cannot be too big. We are investing in the future of our cultures. Said with the words of mrs. Van Ramshorst: “Till we got this playground I as a teacher always thought that recess time was okay for letting the children get rid of their surplus energy. Now I see that the school yard playground is a learning environment! The children really learn a lot out there.”

Play to grow: Physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally and creatively!
School yard playgrounds for today’s generation are much more than physical activity and role play. Unique play environments are learning environments, for physical, cognitive, social, emotional and creative abilities. Playgrounds have an important social function as being one of the last places for children to meet outside the clubs or classrooms and manage in their own way. Playgrounds are important for one more fact: they give children from low income families a free opportunity to work out and be active. In the obesity statistics, these children are over represented!

Notes:
1) Millward Brown based survey, published in Brandchild, Martin Lindstrøm and Patricia
B. Seybold, 2003
2) IOTF, The International Obesity Task Force, www.iotf.orgmediaeuobesity.pdf
3) Inside the Teenage Brain, PBS Frontline, ©2002 PBS/WGBH 2002
from PBS interview by Sarah Spinks with Jay Giedd, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, USA

 Copyright KOMPAN A/S

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