Opening school grounds for play – a toolkit for schools and partners

Author: Play Wales
Date: March 2025

This toolkit is designed to help head teachers, governors and local organisations to work together to consider making school grounds available to local children for playing out of school hours.

This toolkit has been developed to support schools to offer opportunities for children to play at school outside of school hours. It aims to dispel some worries and offer a starting point. It is intended to support the implementation of Welsh Government guidance regarding the use of school grounds for community use.

This is a reviewed and updated edition of previous toolkits produced by Play Wales to support the use of school grounds for playing. It includes helpful resources, such as:

• information about relevant legislation, policy and initiatives
• a school play policy template
• an out of school hours play plan template
• top tips on communicating with parents.

Funding from the Millennium Stadium Charitable Trust has enabled Play Wales to establish partnerships with local authority play development teams, community focused school teams and schools to develop this new version of the toolkit.