You can't play tag on a computer

Or hopscotch. Or skipping. So kids are getting lessons in forgotten playground games. Clare Garner reports

In a Glasgow primary school playground a group of five to 10-year- olds are being given a lesson in how to play.

Children being taught hopscotch by adults, children being taught skipping, might seem like the world turned upside down. But here it was, last Tuesday afternoon, at Saracen Primary School in Hamilton Hill. A small team of social workers was trying to reintroduce playground folklore to a generation reared on video recorders.

At Saracen, playtime has become increasingly problematic. Time-honoured games such as Hopscotch, Skipping, Kick the Can and Fivestones have, say the teachers, gone by the board. "Believe it or not, they don't know how to play any games," whispered one.

"With videos, computers, CDs, and other advances, children just have to plonk themselves down and be entertained," said Evelyn Gibson, the head teacher. "At the moment, children become bored in the playground, which leads to mischief or rough acts, and can end in tears." To improve the situation, Mrs Gibson cut the lunchbreak to 20 minutes; now she feels she needs to resurrect traditional games.

Yet many child psychologists reject the notion that children have lost the art of play. Children may sometimes play different games, they say, but that doesn't mean they don't play as much as previous generations. It is a view shared by Britain's greatest expert on children and their games, Iona Opie, whose book, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, written with her husband Peter, became an instant classic in 1959.

"It simply isn't true that children no longer play games. The instinct to play is built into the human psyche," said Mrs Opie, now 73. "Everybody who collects games has exactly the same experience. You go into a school. You're told children don't play games anymore, that they just hang around. Then you go out into the playground and all the games are crisscrossing - children playing Tag right across some game of Mothers and Fathers. Then you say to the teacher, 'What's that game over there?' She'll say, 'Oh, I shouldn't think it's anything.' You go up to the children because you are absolutely certain and they'll tell you they are playing Black Fox or something."

Nevertheless, Mrs Gibson, 37, a teacher at the 231-pupil school near the crime-ridden Possilpark estate for 13 years and headmistress for the past seven of them, maintains that her charges need old-fashioned play, and asked social workers at the school to provide it. They regard it as a pilot project and hope to take it, if successful, into nine other primary schools in the Possilpark and Milton area, one of Glasgow's roughest. The team began by drawing up a list of games they remembered playing as children. Some, however, are no longer "acceptable", they say. Take: Kiss, Cuddle or Torture. "We played it in school," said Karen Ralston, 33, "but today it's not really acceptable. Torture could lead to someone being over-physical and the same goes for kiss and cuddle."

British Bulldog and Truth-Dare-Double Dare-Promise-Command-or-Opinion will be refined. They are, respectively, "a wee bit rough" and "intimidating". The team prefer safe games like What's the Time, Mr Wolf, Rounders and Hopscotch.

Mrs Gibson explained why. "Many children have computers at home and so what they tend to do in the playground is mimic their computer heroes, film heroes or cartoon heroes. Some children end up hurt or in tears. "We really can't be seen to promote any kind of thing that promotes aggression."

A gaggle of girls and boys burst upon the tarmac playground. One girl, swamped by a silver bomber jacket with a fur-lined hood, sucked her finger; another adjusted her gold plastic hairband and stuck out her tongue; but the majority of the 50-plus youngsters were poised. "Are we going to play football?" piped up one boy.

Ms Ralston explained: "Remember some of the games we played last week. Remember: Lame Wolf, Tame Wolf, You Can't Catch Me? Who wants to be the leader?"

Sixty small hands shot up in the air and a high-pitched: "meeeeeee" reverberated throughout the playground. "Come on," said Ms Ralston. "A little, wee warm-up. Off you go. Not too fast."

The children scattered to every corner of the playground. Each group was to be taught a different game. "Squirrels are quick, snails are slow, camels have humps and out you go." The small voices chanted the verse in perfect unison as they gripped each others' hands and skipped in a circle.

Nearby, a game of What's The Time, Mr Wolf? was getting underway. Mrs Robinson pressed her nose against the red brick school building and chose her moment. "Dinner Time," she roared, when the children least expected it.

Without the project, the children's repertoire of games would be limited to "tag and that", said Kayleigh, six. "We wouldn't know too many games. That one's new, that one's new, this one's new," she said, looking about the playground. Her favourite game remained Dancing in the Meadows, which involves "making up a boyfriend's name, putting your arms up and pushing someone. We learnt it ourself," she said proudly.

Although the children delighted in the afternoon's activities, most said they preferred football, computers and television to the likes of Wiggly Snake or Duck, Duck Goose.

Nine-year-old Gary said he understood why Line Tag had been banned from school. "Some of the boys play dummy fighting in the line," he said. "Heading on and punching them and that. They will, say, hit me and I'll hit them back and it'll start a real fight."

The other game Gary knows is Tag, but he prefers to play with his Sega Megadrive, Game Boy and Nintendo. "I like it better than playing Tag because I've got 80 games," he said. "My wee brother, Jamie, tries to take the control pad off me because he wants a shot on the computer." Jamie is three.

Out of choice, Michelle, nine, would watch television. She rattles off her favourite programmes: "Home and Away, Neighbours, EastEnders, Brookside, Coronation Street, The Bill and that. Hokus Pokus, Children's Ward, London's Burning, Hearbeat, Casualty." When her parents make her go and play outside, she simply asks them to tape the soaps.

James, seven, didn't get a chance to name his favourite game. "You like watching Gladiators," said Kirsty. "That's not true, I like playing football," said James. Kayleigh, six, liked playing with her Barbie dolls - all seven of them.

Ten-year-old Andrew looked streetwise in his navy and orange Umbro jacket. "Ay, we play dares, but not in school," he said, performing a karate kick. "You kick them if they don't do the dare."

An hour and a half later, the playground fell silent and the children emptied out of the school gates in twos and threes. The neighbourhood rang with the screeching sound of rockets and bangers.

"That's children setting off fireworks in the street," said Mrs Gibson, resignation written all over her face. "This could turn into Kate Adie reporting from the West Bank."