New School - No Playground - Less Bullying?

Just found this on my del.icio.us subscriptions page.

From: The Guardian Unlimited
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2073781,00.html?gu...

"The most expensive state school in Britain will have no playground. The Cambridgeshire authorities ..... believe a lack of outside space will avoid the danger of 'uncontrollable' groups of children running around at break time.
... All pupils will be treated as employees so, it is believed, they will not require free time outside. ... but staff argue that the design means there will also be less bullying"

I'm trying to imagine school with no playground and children with no way to let off steam, it has to be a recipe for trouble. For some reason Pink Floyds "The Wall" is replaying in my mind.

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Comment by SusanTsairi on May 10, 2007 at 10:14am: "Stupider and studpider"! According to timesonline http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1752289.ece "Another city academy, Unity in Middlesbrough, opened in 2002 without a playground, prompting criticism from government inspectors about poor design. The school later built a playground." one would think it wise to learn from others' experience. However, it seems that the new school is to replace 3 others, thus forming a 2,200 strong school population which the staff are afraid will be uncontrollable.
........forget the playground issue for a minute, what is it like to be a student in such a large school.

Comment by Sylvia Martinez on May 10, 2007 at 11:20am: as my daughter says, "stupid with a backwards b"

Comment by SusanTsairi on May 12, 2007 at 5:24pm: Hi Skip, your story seems very like the situation with ed tech at the moment, the kids are on the web sharing info and teaching each other the skills as the need arises, we adults are still making our elaborate plans.

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