219 schools with a Schoolyard14

Schoolyard14 makes schoolyards an attractive place to play again by giving the school and its students the opportunity to pick their own playing fields, which take the form of lines and coloured areas (coatings) applied to the ground and walls. Parties involved associate Schoolyard14 with ‘fun,’ ‘enthusiasm on the part of the pupils,’ ‘challenge,’ and ‘promotion for participation in sport’.
Students, teachers, and directors give Schoolyard14 a very solid passing grade. Over 50,000 children play on a Schoolyard14 every day. The new plans completed in 2015 have succeeded in getting 21,663 additional children active.

Impact

As in 2014, the Department of Public Administration and Organisational Sciences at Utrecht University was commissioned to assess the impact of Schoolyard14. The focus of the assessment was on the social themes: whether children are being more active and playing more together, and whether any decrease in bullying behaviour could be established.

• Schoolyard14 is used primarily during school hours
• Nearly half of instructors organise an exercise activity on a Schoolyard14 more frequently than they did on the old schoolyard
• Use of the Schoolyard14 after school hours remains disappointing
• The stakeholders (students, teaching staff, directors) are somewhat positive about Schoolyard14’s contribution to a more active lifestyle
• Less clear is Schoolyard14’s contribution to social behaviour
• Differences are observable across the participating schools. Schoolyard14 achieves the highest level of benefits in social behaviour among students in schools with sound conditions and good social circumstances, as well as in schools for special education
• The attraction of Schoolyard14 seems to gradually diminish over time

Schoolyard14’s direct impact on a more active lifestyle, social behaviour, and connection with the community must be the subject of a more refined analysis. Nonetheless, we can conclude that Schoolyard14 has a positive impact on children’s personal development, because it teaches them to play together. Additionally, to some degree it has a positive effect on children’s health because it gets children exercising, which makes them more physically fit on the whole. This helps them concentrate better in the classroom.

International

In Spain, great strides have been made with Project Patio14 (Schoolyard14). In spring of 2015, FC Barcelona and Obra Social de la Caixa entered into a partnership for the completion of ten schoolyards; five are now open, and the other five will be open in early 2016.
In addition to the results of the partnership between FC Barcelona and Obra Social de la Caixa, a number of other schoolyards have been completed as a result of one-time partnerships.
There are now a total of twelve schoolyards in Spain, with a further five to be completed in early 2016.

Schoolyard14’s contribution to the objectives of the Cruyff Foundation

Schoolyard14 makes a positive contribution to the four major social themes on which the Foundation’s work is based:

Health

On a Schoolyard14, children get more exercise and get fitter. Fit children are healthier, suffer less from weight issues, and perform better at school.

Quality of life

Every Schoolyard14 has a sign bearing the 14 rules of Johan Cruyff. These are a tool for helping young people to interact better.

Personal development

The starter package actively invites the children to have an input and get started with the activities of Schoolyard14. This contributes to their own personal growth.

Participation

The Cruyff Foundation is a champion for all children. The 14 rules teach children to respect each other, because no child should be left on the sidelines.

What can be improved

• Maintain students’ attention to Schoolyard14; the attraction of Schoolyard14 seems to gradually diminish over time
• The procedure for completion must be further standardised and shortened; this has been placed on the agenda for the first quarter of 2016
• Entering into partnerships with local authorities and school boards to facilitate the further development of Schoolyard14 in the Netherlands
• Updating offerings and exchanging ideas about Schoolyard14
• Creating partnership relations with other institutions that can activate the use of the Schoolyard14, such as community coaches and JOGG¹

Market developments

For the schools, exercise at school remains an important agenda item. Achieving compliance with the Netherlands Healthy Exercise standard² will require getting more children exercising more often.
Internal market research has demonstrated that many schools in the Netherlands have a grey schoolyard (playground). Although there are other initiatives encouraging school students to get active on schoolyards, Schoolyard14 has a strong position and increasing name recognition. Schools indicate that the 14 rules of Johan Cruyff are very compatible with the rules of behaviour the schools themselves enforce.
A second opportunity that emerged from the study was that crowdfunding, and particularly online crowdfunding, within the educational sector is increasing, giving schools more options to finance a Schoolyard14 independently.
In the coming years, the Foundation will be focusing on expansion in Spain and the UK.

2016 ambitions

The most significant ambition for Schoolyard14 in the Netherlands is increasing recognition. We intend to achieve this by:

• Sharing success stories in order to generate more awareness of Schoolyard14
• Being present at meetings in which parties from the sporting and educational sectors are present, in order to increase awareness of Schoolyard14 and find potential new partnerships; for example, sharing best practices
• Increasing local visibility by providing schools with a communications toolkit including a standard press release, template for social media messages, and information on Schoolyard14 for the school’s website
• Completion of 100 Schoolyard14s in the Netherlands in 2016
• Completion of 10 Schoolyard14s in Spain and four in the UK

Risk management

Without enthusiastic local authorities, school boards and partners, the future of Schoolyard14 is uncertain. The procedures involving these parties can become very long. Experience shows that sustainable use of Schoolyard14 demands enthusiastic manpower within the schools, something that the schools do not always have time for.