Table 2: Population of the schools Table 3. Playspaces Table 4 compares natural features in the playgrounds of respondent schools, with 93.2 percent in Victoria and 41.2 percent in Denizli having sandpits. More schools in Denizli (29.0%) than in Victoria (17%) allow children to climb trees. More schools in Victoria (94%) have grassed areas than Denizli (42.4%). In both contexts, similar numbers of schools have flower and food gardens. Data indicates that Australian schools have more natural elements in their playgrounds than schools in Turkey. Table 4: Natural features Table 5. Playground design Table 5 shows that schools use a variety of approaches when planning their playgrounds. In Denizli “collaboration with teacher” is the most common way for planning playground improvements (64.7%). In contrast, most Victorian schools collaborate with community in designing playgrounds (81%). In both contexts there is collaboration with teachers; however, children are more often included in Victoria (77.2%) than in Denizli (16.5%). Table 6. Funding playground improvements Table 7: Creating playground rules Table 8: Situations leading to playground rule changes Table 9: Consequences for breaking playground rules Supervision of the playground Table 10: Playground supervision As part of the survey, short answer responses were collected about the types of learning occurring in the playground.
