PLAYTIME has been “squeezed out” of children’s lives due to playground closures, increased traffic and use of no-ball-games signs in communal spaces, a major report has warned.

Five to seven-year-olds are spending 23 minutes less breaktime per day on average compared to their peers in 1995 — as screens and the online world dominate children’s time at home, the Raising the Nation Play Commission inquiry said.

It called on the Department for Education (DfE) to ringfence time in the school day for breaktimes and lunchtimes, and issue guidance discouraging the punitive withdrawal of playtime, criticising the curriculum’s “narrow emphasis on rote learning and examinations, reinforced by a highly pressurised accountability system.”

Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio said playtime has “a very important role both inside and outside of school,” but added: “If we want to create more time for play in schools then we have to balance this against all the other expectations we have of schools.”

The DfE has been contacted for comment.