An Overview of Games and Activities on Two Primary School Playgrounds

This chapter has several aims: to introduce readers to the two school playgrounds which are discussed throughout the book, to define practical terms we use in our classification of data and to provide an overview of the games and activities present on the two school playgrounds. The chapter starts with a descriptive account of the two research sites, including a discussion of the different forms of regulation and physical resources of the two schools. Next, the chapter discusses our classification of games and rhymes — an adaptation of Bishop and Curtis’s classification which we further developed to reflect the nature of the data collected from our two playgrounds (Curtis, 2001). The bulk of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of a survey conducted in both schools which asked children (aged 5–11) about the games and activities they play on the playgrounds. The analysis considers factors such as age and gender, and also includes a discussion of the media-referenced play present on the two playgrounds. The chapter presents a classification system for media-referenced play, based on a combination of survey and observation-based data. Finally, the analysis of the survey data examines age, gender and media as they figure in pretend play (a topic developed in Chapters 6–9). Throughout the chapter, current data are explored in relation to findings from the Opies as well as other playground research (e.g. Blatchford, 1998; Thorne, 1993).