Win outdoor equipment for your early years setting

The Play More campaign was launched last year and aims to encourage parents to be ‘more dareful and less careful’.

Parents and carers can nominate their nursery to win either a Playground Regeneration Grant or Play More outdoor toy equipment.

This year’s Play More campaign is the result of new research conducted by family skincare brand Sudocrem which found that parents, rather than technology, could be holding children back from the outdoors.

In a survey of more than 1,000 children aged between six and 11 years, almost three in five children (57 percent) said their parents worried too much about their safety.

The study also revealed a generation of children who recognise they don’t play out in the fresh air often enough, with 52 per cent of those questioned admitting they spend too much time on games consoles and a further 60 per cent saying there should be more games to encourage children to play outside, like Pokemon Go.

However, 61 per cent of questioned children claimed not having enough time to play outside.

This year’s Play More campaign is supported by Professor Sir Robert Winston, who feels that spending so much time using technology at the cost of time in the great outdoors can have an impact on a child’s development.

‘My journey to primary school was a long walk, alone, then a three-mile ride on the 23 bus; by the age of eight I travelled alone for 50 minutes on the Tube across London. Outdoor play is important to children!’ he said.

The Play More initiative has so far provided nine nurseries across the country with outdoor toys and grants.

• More information www.sudocrem.co.uk/social-hub Nominations close on 31 August 2017.