Playground Games Banned By Schools, And Why

Every few years a story appears about a school banning conkers, and the story is usually half right and entirely missing the detail.

Here's what was genuinely stopped, why, and which bans never really existed.

Genuinely banned in most schools

• British Bulldog - broken wrists and collarbones, from lifting and tackling running children on tarmac. The most widely and consistently banned game in the country.
• Red rover, for the same reason: a linked chain of children being charged at is a collision waiting to happen.
• Piggy-back fights and chariot races.
• Chinese burns, dead legs and dead arms, which were never games so much as an arrangement.
• Stone throwing games and anything involving a hard object thrown at a person.
• Slaps, knuckles and other hand games designed to hurt.

Restricted rather than banned

• Conkers - restricted at some schools, usually to goggles or a designated area, occasionally banned outright. Far rarer than the newspapers suggest.
• Marbles - banned in some schools, almost always over playing for keeps rather than the game itself. It was the gambling, not the marbles.
• Football in the playground, usually restricted to a marked area or certain days, because of the hard ball and the space it takes.
• Tag, restricted in a handful of schools during the fad for no-contact policies, and widely misreported as a national ban.
• Handstands and cartwheels, restricted in some schools to grass or the gym.
• Skipping ropes, occasionally restricted over the rope itself rather than the skipping.

The bans that were mostly myths

• The famous 'conkers goggles' story from 2004 was one head teacher making a light-hearted point, reported nationally as a national rule. It was never one.
• There has never been a national ban on any playground game. Every decision is school by school.
• 'Health and safety banned it' is almost always a school policy, not a legal requirement. The HSE has published corrections saying exactly this.
• Musical chairs banned for competitiveness - a handful of schools, endlessly reported.
• Best friends banned - one story, repeated for fifteen years.

What actually changed

• Playtimes got shorter. That did more to end these games than any ban.
• Supervision ratios, insurance and the shift from grass to tarmac.
• Playground zoning - quiet area, ball area, equipment area - which structures play and squeezes out the free-for-all games.
• Adult-organised games at lunchtime, which are safer and less inventive.
• Phones from an older age, which took the walk home rather than the playground.

What replaced them

• Playground leaders and sports crew schemes, where older children run games for younger ones. Genuinely good.
• Trim trails and fixed equipment.
• Painted markings - hopscotch, snakes and ladders, target grids.
• Loose parts play: crates, tyres, planks, fabric. The best of the replacements by a distance.
• Skipping and clapping games have survived all of it, because they need nothing and hurt nobody.

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How to write it so it lands

• There's never been a national ban on any of them.
• The marbles ban was about keepsies, not marbles.
• Shorter playtimes killed more games than any rule.

Where to shop next

• Knock down ginger: the names for it
• Kerby rules
• British Bulldog rules
• Stuck in the mud and tig games
• What's the time, Mr Wolf?
• Hopscotch rules and grids
• Marbles rules and terms
• Conkers rules
• Hide and seek variations
• Forty forty and block one two three
• Wall ball and two-ball
• Playground games by region
• Wet playtime indoor games
• Rhymes for picking who's it
• Playground games we all played
• Clapping games and skipping rhymes
• Traditional British party games
• Free feel good tools
• Shop cards
• Planning the party? Birthday party ideas
• How to make a balloon arch
• Photo booth prop ideas
• Birthday cards for kids
• Pin badges
• All guides

Frequently asked questions

Why was British Bulldog banned?

Because the traditional catch meant lifting or wrestling a sprinting child to the ground, usually on tarmac and often with a big size difference. Broken wrists and collarbones were common, so schools banned it individually through the nineties.

Were conkers really banned in schools?

Rarely. The famous 2004 goggles story was one head teacher making a light-hearted point and was reported as a national rule. Some schools restrict conkers to a designated area; outright bans are unusual.

Why were marbles banned in some schools?

Almost always because of playing for keeps - children losing collections they'd swapped or bought, and the arguments that followed. It was the gambling element rather than the game.

Did health and safety ban playground games?

No. There has never been a national ban on a playground game, and the Health and Safety Executive has published corrections saying so. Every decision is made school by school as local policy.

Do you sell games or play equipment?

No - we make greeting cards, art prints and pin badges in the UK. Every game here needs a wall, a ball, a piece of chalk or nothing at all, and the only products on this page are our own cards.