Big sporting events, like the Tokyo Olympic Games, lead many youngsters to dream of being a world-class sportsperson. While few will achieve those dizzy heights, many others will be inspired to take part, finding a life-long passion for sport and adopting a healthier lifestyle in the process. To keep those dreams alive, schools need to provide children with the opportunity to take part. With that in mind, here are some of the best playground sports equipment available today.

Sports surfacing

Providing opportunities to take part in playground sports, whether in PE lessons or during play, starts with great surfacing. Replacing tired, asphalt surfaces that are worn and patchy with resin-bound gravel makes them easier and safer to play on. For sports that require grass surfacing, such as soccer, rugby, lawn tennis and so forth, moving to artificial grass can make life so much easier. Artificial grass doesn’t need cutting or weeding, it doesn’t get boggy and slippery in wet weather and it doesn’t dry out and go patchy in the summer. It stays perfect to do sports all year round, ensuring learning and training can continue uninterrupted.

Sports markings

Inexpensive, long-lasting and quick and easy to install, sports markings can transform a blank playground surface into a range of clearly marked out sports pitches, courts and training areas that can be used for both PE and play.

There are a variety of pitch and court markings, including those for football, netball, tennis, rounders and cricket. For those with smaller playground spaces, you can even have a multi-court, where different colours are used to create different pitches in the same space. You can even get multi-sport accessories to match, such as a football goal with a basketball net attached.

As for training, there are a wide variety of multi-skills markings available, including fast-feet steppers, target trainers, grid squares and even a purpose-built multi-skill zone.

Create your own MUGA

A dedicated Multi-Use Games Area or MUGA can transform your sports facilities, expanding your PE and extracurricular provision and providing children with far more opportunities to learn and take part in new sports.

If you are looking to create a MUGA, the team at ESP Play can help you design one that meets your needs. We’ll help you choose the best place to locate the area at your school and how to arrange things within the space to fulfil your requirements. We’ll help find the right solutions for surfacing and marking and explain the best accessory equipment to ensure you fully equip your outdoor sports facilities, for example, with things like ball walls, multi goals, wall targets, fitness markings and so forth.

Outdoor gyms

Whether you’re looking to inspire the next Olympic weightlifting champion or just want to give children the opportunity to increase their strength and fitness, the AllGo+ Gym is the ideal playground solution. With children lifting nothing more than their own body weight, it is safe enough for school use but provides a full suite of fitness equipment to enhance the development of every muscle group in the body.

Self-contained within its own, attractive octagonal area, professionally surfaced and laid out, it provides gym equipment that can be used widely in PE and even during supervised playtimes. Suitable for pupils over 1.4m (4ft. 6) tall, the gym includes pull-up bars, monkey bars, multi-height circle steps and press-up bars, level and inclined sit-up benches, step-ups, leg raisers and fitness markings for agility and balance. For health and safety purposes, every element is labelled and displays clear instructions about the exercises it is to be used for and the correct and safe way to do them.

A Daily Mile track

A British initiative, the Daily Mile has been taken up by over 12,000 schools in 84 countries and now has over 3 million children running, walking and wheel-chairing a mile every day. Designed to improve general health, fitness and wellbeing, as well as tackle issues like childhood obesity, it’s also inspired many youngsters to take up long distance sports. Who knows, the next David Weir, Mo Farah or Paula Radcliffe could be amongst them?

With many schools not having enough space for a full-length daily mile route, the solution of choice for many is to install a Daily Mile track that they can do laps of around the school. Providing a suitable track surface ensures that all members of the school community can take part, including wheelchair users, while providing the ideal training conditions for those who want to take the sport more seriously.

Conclusion

The UK has a long tradition of producing world-class sportspeople and for this to continue, the children of today need the inspiration and opportunities to take part in a wider range of sports activities. Equipping your playground ensures this can happen while also enabling everyone to participate in healthy activities.

For more information about ESP Play outdoor sports equipment and more, visit our Products page.