Big impact with a small budget

Do you need help working out what pieces of playground equipment give you the best “bang for buck”?

After 10 years of designing playgrounds in Queensland and NSW schools, I’ve collected a lot of anecdotal evidence. I’ve also observed thousands of children to determine what is the most cost effective and safe piece of equipment to install to ensure no queuing in the school playground.

My top suggestion is…  the jumping pillow!

Jumping pillows can entertain more kids at any one time, than any other piece of playground equipment.They encourage activity, they are fun and they look impressive in a school playground. It used to be that jumping pillows would only come in a standard pattern of primary colours but we have also found a way to put beautiful designs on them!

The one down size of a jumping pillow is you need a pretty big footprint so if size is an issue, my other suggestion is …a creatively designed spider web.

Schools are always asking me to design in equipment that can absorb a lot of students at once (safely of course!) to reduce the amount of waiting time in a playground and keep as many kids active as possible during break time.

Spider webs are very cost effective and can take a lot of students at any one time. They can be configured to suit the available space and also adapted to suit the age of the children using the playground.

If you would like to chat through your ideas for a school playground project, feel free to call me, Andrew, on 0466 166 054 or email Andrew@everythingoutside.com.au