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Where would our nation's footballers be without their playtime kick-about?
David Jamieson, Scotland

I think children need a well-rounded day. You just can't let a child play ALL DAY and become a well-rounded person. There has to be a balance of work and play. My son has developed a disability that affects every part of his life, both physically and mentally. If I just worked on my son's physical difficulties and didn't pay attention to his mental difficulties, where would I be? He needs both. I think any child, whether they have difficulties or not, need to be well-balanced.
But please don't think that it's up to the school system to do that for you! Be a responsible parent!
Becky Rodrigues, USA

Of course it's quality time. It teaches social behaviour and helps prevent anti-social behaviour as an adult. Maybe teachers consider shortening breaks to b a good way to prepare children for the rigours of work in the real world (unless they opt to become teachers that is).
Tim Pearce, UK

A better question...is time spent in the classroom quality time? We built our educational industry according to production demands and then expect our children to fit in. Playing is fundamental to youngsters' development in every social species. It's the way we learn about the nature of society instead of about our knowledge of the universe so far! It's about learning the rules we have not yet conceptualised to teach in class. In a few words, the playground is the most reliable lab for societal skills. It should remain unspoiled.
Christos N Kyrou, USA

We play with numbers, we play with words. Is there a personality who came up with something new, by just being stuck in a book? When we daydream we are also playing! Where and when do we learn but at play?
PL, Singapore

When will we let kids be kids and get the bloody psychologists out of the playground? After the great 'Teletubbie' debate we learnt that children do respond to being talked to as children by (supposedly) other children. Now we learn that locking children in the classroom for hours on end is detrimental to their emotional health. What do we pay these people for? Well to save these 'child psychologists" time I have come up with the answer to their next question: no, hitting children around the face with a sharp stick is not a pleasant sensation for them!
Paul Beaumont, UK

There is too much pressure on children to grow-up fast. They should be allowed more playtime to enjoy their childhood.
M Lockhart, USA

The 30 minutes a day breaktime at school were undoubtedly more memorable than the 5 hours spent staring vacantly at mindless sums and insignificant texts!
Andrew Shadwick, England

It was during breaks that I made friends with other kids not in my tutor group and discovered people with similar interests, some of whom I am still friends with 20 years later!
Yvonne Aburrow, UK

Children should be allowed to be children, and part of being a child is the joy of plain and simple play!!
Sipho Moyo, Ivory Coast

Children need this time to make new friends. It's a time when they can freely express themselves.
Marva Gabbidon, London, England

For me, playtime was a dreaded event in the school day. It gave the school bullies free reign to tease and torment with only one teacher watching several hundred children. I used to sit on the classroom step wishing the 15 minutes away, hoping that I'd soon hear the whistle to go back into class.
P Burley, UK

I work in the field of children's free-play at primary school. This report provides long awaited weight to the views of many that children's freely chosen, self-directed playtimes have been gradually eroded in the last 25 years. Children's playtimes are an easy target for taking away time for other more 'serious' pursuits. However, to a child NOTHING is more serious than thier play. As for the apparent decline in traditional games - not true: traditional games (whatever they are) are played now just as they where many years ago. If traditional games are played less now it is, in my experience, becasue less time is available in which to play. Even Pepys believed children to "not play the same games as when I was a boy".
Marc Armitage, UK

Recreation is an exceptionally important learning stimulus for children, especially younger children who are still learning how they should and are expected to behave in society. This is what shapes us into the people we are today.
Richard Harris, UK

Playtime, which is often a large part of a child's socialization, is taken for granted, and in this hectic world where parents have less time with their children, it is more important than ever. Many children spend all their playtime in front of the television or computer and this is not socialization.
DA Gonzalez, USA

Of course some children have always used playtime as an opportunity to bully and intimidate others. What are the people who argue against playtime really suggesting? That children should never mix with each other except under the closest adult supervision? Children need to learn how to deal with other people and that includes people who may not be as nice, polite or pleasant as themselves. Supervised playtime gives children the chance to do that on their own terms. Yes, adults should exercise a degree of relaxed supervision but social interactions cannot be taught in a classroom where it is the teacher's job to impart knowledge. The alternatives, of course, are stark:
Children should be supervised by adults twenty-four hours a day and never, ever learn what it is to be a child
That children should learn all of their social interactions playing in the street without any adult supervision whatsoever - now THERE'S a recipe for bullying if bad behaviour is not caught and rectified in the playground.
At some time in their lives, ALL children will have to learn how to deal with unpleasantness. There is no such thing as a nice, candy-floss world and we should be teaching our children how to survive in the world as it is (with perhaps some aspiration to make it a little bit better than they found it) rather than asking them to live in the world we wish we could create for them.
Thomas Murphy, UK

Playtime is definitely as important to a child's development as studying in a classroom.
B. Chatterjee, US

The lessons learned in the playground are often the ones which could never be learned in the classroom. Interaction with others in an informal environment is an essential part of our own personal and social development.
Philip Sharkey, UK

Current research suggests that adult obesity may in some part be linked to childhood activity patterns. If this is the case it makes little sense to reduce children's opportunity to basically get up and move about. Even walking is better than sitting ! I do not see how containment will reduce the causes of bullying. Happier kids and not less play?
Tony Oldham, UK

Why does it need to be useful, and increase children's productivity as adults? What is wrong with just having a nice break from the school routine.
Joshua, US

If the teaching was more effective, there wouldn't be a need to shorten the breaks between lessons. More hours of teaching wouldn't necessarily lead to more learning. In some circumstances, the reverse might be the case.
Martin Stark, England

In my opinion, I think playtime is rather important as it increases or rather it teaches the children how to communicate better and learn how to mix and share things with others. The playtime also helps them to increase their thinking capabilities because they learn how to or plan how to tackle each game in an effective manner. This is a positive characteristics and they will develop and mature faster.
Sundari Rajan, Malaysia

No, bring back corporal punishment, the three r's, and teach respect first then playtime can be just that, rather than a time to bully, intimidate and abuse one another.
R Mathew, Australia

From my experience of primary school, playtime was the only escape from the bullying fascists in the classroom. Apart from that, playtime is necessary for a child's developing social skills that play a vital role in adulthood and are just as important as lessons learned in the classroom.
Jill Rankin, England

I learnt an enormous amount of valuable lessons in the playground and I believe that I wouldn't be so at ease socially if I hadn't had ample opportunity to mix with their children at breaktime. I lived in a little village with no means of making friends and therefore to meet children at school was wonderful for me. I even enjoyed school because of it.
Jasmine Rowland, UK

The sad truth is that these days children use breaktime to cause trouble. There just are not the resources to keep a check on them so all schools can do is keep children in the classroom. If children are learning bad behaviour at breaktime instead of playing innocently, playtime is definitely not quality time.
Matthew Clarke, US

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