Playground plan to put adventure back into childhood

By LAURA CLARK

Last updated at 20:43 07 December 2007


Adventure playgrounds to expose older children to risk will open around the country as part of a major government plan to reverse the decline of childhood.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls is expected to pledge extra money for physically-challenging play areas aimed at turning eight to 13-year-olds away from the computer screen.

He is worried too many children no longer experience "controlled risk" which would teach them to take safe decisions in future.

Mr Balls is also concerned that primary school children in England spend more time playing computer and video games than youngsters almost anywhere else in the world.

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kids in adventure playground

His initiative to create hundreds of new play areas forms part of a flagship Children's Plan spelling out policies for the next 10 years.

It is also expected to revamp drugs and alcohol education in an attempt to tackle increasing "risky behaviour" such as binge-drinking and signal a crackdown on children's exposure to violent images via the internet or video games.

While the plan will focus on improving children's lives outside school, it will also contain measures aimed at driving up exam performance.

Mr Balls will announce a £250million fund to provide more catch-up classes and one-to-one tuition with the aim of helping struggling pupils and stretching the gifted.

He will also confirm plans to move towards testing pupils when they are ready rather than at the end of a "key stage" at school.

Secondary pupils who have been expelled from school or are struggling with the curriculum will learn how to run a business at a new breed of "studio schools" for 14 to 19-year-olds.

More like workplaces than schools, pupils will learn teamwork and leadership skills.

The minister is also expected to back calls for more areas to get the kind of local amenities on offer in middle-class "nappy valleys", such as parks and play areas.

• Dairy farmers have been the losers over milk prices in recent years, according to the National Farmers' Union.

The average of 10.45p per pint they received last year, down from 13.9p in 1995, is little more than the cost of production.

The low price on offer has been instrumental in driving thousands of small dairy farmers out of the industry in recent years.

Nationally, the number of dairy farms has fallen from around 28,000 to 13,000 over the last 20 years, while 30 per cent of the remainder say they are considering quitting.

Mary Rosevear, of the Small Farms Association, said: "About 25 per cent of our members every year are going out of dairy. It's just not economical."

An NFU spokesman said: "Massive strain has been put on farmers and their families."

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