Green schoolyards aim to transform recreational spaces into cooler, more pleasant places to live and share on a daily basis. These redesigned school playgrounds address today’s climate and educational challenges while respecting the environment and children’s well-being. Renovated schoolyards integrate more nature and vegetation, improved rainwater management and access to water points. The layouts are more playful and better adapted to children’s needs and abilities.
What is a Green Schoolyard?
A Green schoolyard is a redesigned and redeveloped school playground that offers a cooler, greener and more sustainable space. Launched by the City of Paris in 2019 as part of its fight against urban heat islands, this initiative has since spread to many local authorities across France. This approach is part of a broader strategy to adapt to climate change and respond to social challenges in urban areas.
Green schoolyards transform traditionally mineral, asphalt-covered school spaces into true living environments where nature regains its place. These redeveloped playgrounds contribute to children’s well-being in a setting that respects biodiversity and promotes responsible water management. They encourage free play, well-being, inclusion and social diversity. The playgrounds installed in schools are designed to blend harmoniously into the surrounding natural ecosystem.
Objectives of Green Schoolyards
- Combat urban heat islands: soil depaving and greening actively contribute to cooling urban environments
- Enhance children’s well-being: creation of calm and play areas that support physical and emotional development
- Ensure inclusion and diversity: layouts designed for all children, respecting their abilities and needs
- Give meaning to environmental education: daily, hands-on awareness of nature and biodiversity
- Support sustainable water management: rainwater collection and reuse as part of an eco-responsible approach
- Strengthen social ties: encourage interaction among children and open the school to its surrounding community
Benefits for children and schools
Developing a Green schoolyard brings multiple tangible benefits for schools and their young users. From an educational perspective, these spaces become living learning resources, helping children understand environmental and sustainable development issues.
These spaces help to:
- Organise educational workshops around gardening, wildlife observation or the water cycle
- Develop children’s motor skills and physical abilities through a variety of play equipment
- Reduce stress and improve classroom concentration thanks to calm zones and green spaces
- Encourage experiential learning through direct contact with nature
For children, these redeveloped playgrounds support physical and motor development through varied and adapted play equipment. In addition, our inclusive playgrounds ensure that every child—regardless of ability—can play and interact with peers while respecting their individuality.
Steps to transform a schoolyard into a Green Schoolyard
Transforming a traditional schoolyard into a Green schoolyard requires a structured and progressive approach that forms the foundation of a sustainable and responsible project. Proludic supports local authorities and schools at every stage, from design to completion. Successful implementation relies on close collaboration between all local stakeholders.
1- Soil depaving
The first essential step involves removing asphalt and impermeable surfaces typically found in traditional schoolyards. Depaving allows the ground to breathe again and promotes natural rainwater infiltration.
2- Installation of play equipment
Once surfaces have been depaved, installing adapted outdoor playground equipment is a key stage of the project. Selected equipment must integrate seamlessly into the natural environment while offering a wide range of play activities.
Proludic offers structures made from various natural materials designed to:
- Encourage free play and exploration
- Promote interaction among children
- Guarantee a high level of safety in compliance with European standard EN 1176
- Ensure accessibility for all children
3- Greening
Greening represents the final stage of the transformation. It includes planting trees, shrubs and vegetation adapted to the local climate, creating natural shaded areas and cool zones.
Our operational support is fully mastered, regardless of project scale or client specifications.
Proludic: your partner for successful Green Schoolyards
With over 35 years of experience in playground development and more than 150,000 projects delivered worldwide, Proludic is the trusted partner of local authorities, schools and institutions looking to transform their spaces into Green schoolyards.
Our expertise and commitment to sustainable solutions make us a leading player in this field.
End-to-end support
Proludic experts support you from A to Z in your Green schoolyard project: design, manufacturing, installation, servicing and maintenance. Each project benefits from a bespoke study that takes into account site constraints, educational objectives and budget.
We mobilise all our resources to meet your needs:
- A dedicated design team for Green schoolyard projects
- Regional project managers across the territory
- An in-house design office to adapt solutions to each site
- A responsive after-sales service to ensure long-term durability
We offer a complete range of playgrounds adapted to Green schoolyards, including our customisable playgrounds that enable the creation of unique, bespoke playgrounds meeting the needs of users and local authorities.
Sustainable natural wood structures serving your project
Our playground equipment made from sustainable natural wood meets the challenges of Green schoolyards and vegetated playgrounds by offering structures that blend perfectly with nature. Play features, experiential and interactive activities available to children in natural environments are reflected in our structures and animate our playgrounds. Manufactured using environmentally friendly materials, our solutions are part of a sustainable and responsible approach.
Discover our case studies
Arborea Play®: tree-connected structures for a unique experience
Arborea Play® naturally finds its place in Green schoolyards, which aim to transform outdoor spaces into more natural and shared environments. The various play structures installed in a Green schoolyard offer a playful, enriching and educational experience. Each child explores nature—within nature itself.
Arborea Play® equipment supports educators and teachers in their educational missions within schools.
These structures help to:
- Create a direct connection between children and the plant world
- Offer a wide range of activities adapted to all ages
- Integrate harmoniously into the schoolyard’s natural environment
- Support teachers in nature discovery workshops
Interested in a Green schoolyard project? Get in touch!
Developing a Green schoolyard helps combat urban heat islands and reintroduce nature into urban areas. Greening school playgrounds educates children about the environment while encouraging play through specially designed Proludic play equipment.
Green schoolyards can be implemented in many types of facilities: nursery schools, primary schools, middle schools, after-school centres, leisure centres and high schools. Nurseries and children’s gardens are also central to Green schoolyard thinking. Local authorities lead many playground redevelopment projects in partnership with Proludic, a playground manufacturer and developer with over 35 years of experience.
Several steps are required to create a Green schoolyard. Proludic, partner to local authorities in schoolyard development, manages these works: first, asphalt and impermeable surfaces are removed to allow the soil to breathe again. Then, the installation of outdoor playground equipment and greening transform the schoolyard into a pleasant, environmentally friendly living space.
To support a Green schoolyard project, you can turn to market specialists. Proludic supports architects, specialist design offices, local authorities and schools in developing Green school playgrounds.
Each Green schoolyard project is unique and adapted to the site’s specific characteristics. Proludic carries out a bespoke study considering available surface area, site configuration, sun exposure and technical constraints. Even on limited spaces, relevant solutions can be implemented: planter-based greening, compact play structures or multifunctional zones. Our expertise allows us to offer optimised solutions for every situation, from nursery schools to high schools, while respecting user needs.
All Proludic equipment installed in Green schoolyards complies with European safety standards EN 1176 and EN 1177 governing playgrounds. Our structures also meet accessibility requirements, ensuring that all children—including those with disabilities—can enjoy the facilities. Ensuring a high level of safety is an absolute priority in all our projects, without compromising on material quality or durability.
Several funding schemes can support Green schoolyard projects. Local authorities may apply for:
-Regional grants for greening public spaces
-The French State’s Green Fund for climate change adaptation
-Departmental grants dedicated to school playgrounds
-European funding such as ERDF (European Regional Development Fund)
Proludic can guide you towards the most suitable funding options and support you in preparing your applications.
