ECB launch playground markings to help regenerate PE and sport in schools

At Montgomery Primary School in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, current England and Warwickshire CCC player Nick Knight today launched an inventive new scheme intended to provide a major boost to school sport.

In a move aimed at improving the provision of PE and sport in schools and making children more active, thereby helping to counter the unprecedented rise in child obesity, innovative playground markings were unveiled which will not only encourage boys and girls to play more sport in their breaks but, importantly, to help teachers better deliver PE lessons to their pupils.

Making the long overdue step from old-fashioned chalk marks on playground walls, these new brightly-coloured, multi-faceted markings will allow matches and training for a variety of sports - including cricket, football, netball and hockey - catering for a wide-range of sporting tastes.

Numbered targets will also help with numeracy skills while the layout of the targets within the playground will facilitate more organised practice sessions.

It is hoped that these imaginative markings, devised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and implemented by Highway Safety Systems Ltd (HSS), will be replicated at schools throughout the country.

David Leighton, ECB Primary Schools Development Manager, said, "Playground markings are a cost-effective way of stimulating interest in sport amongst school children, aiding the teaching of sport, and improving children's health.

With large amounts of government money being made available for improving school sports facilities, the ECB wanted to ensure that cricket was included in plans for spending it. This is why we have come up with a high quality, inexpensive but innovative concept, which will not only benefit cricket but many other sports besides.

Young children have always relied on painted stumps on brick walls to play their cricket but we are taking the concept a step further. The ECB is charged with developing the game `from playground to Test Arena' and this is the proof of where we start!"

The ECB and HSS aim to encourage Local Education Authorities and Head Teachers throughout the country to adopt the markings in a bid to encourage greater activity in school break-times and better use of existing school outdoor spaces.

In-Service Training is offered by the ECB, free of charge, to teachers at the schools that implement the playground markings.