Public parks as schoolyards – experiences from a secondary school in Oslo

Providing school students with access to public parks may be a good alternative for city schools with limited schoolyard areas, to promote physical activity and well-being.

Background: Green public parks promote mental and physical health. Sofienberg school in central Oslo is a secondary school welcoming 400 pupils aged 13-16 years. It has one of the smallest schoolyards in the country at only 3.1 m2 per pupil, well below the recommended 12-18 m2 for the inner city. After years of community involvement, it was decided to regenerate the adjacent public park for use as an additional schoolyard. The renovation took place in the summer/fall of 2024. This research investigates factors that a) promoted or hindered the planning and realization of the park regeneration, b) influence the use of the park among students before and after regeneration, and c) the impact of park regeneration on the school social environment, physical activity, concentration and learning, and d) how functional is a city park as a school yard. This work is part of the EU-funded Joint Action JAPreventNCD.
Methods: Mixed methods are used to collect data in a repeated cross-sectional design. During the fall of 2024 and before park regeneration, observation of school students’ activities and social interaction was conducted in the school yard and a questionnaire completed by students to map their use of outdoor areas, preferences for such areas and well-being at school. During the spring and fall of 2025 and after park regeneration, observation and questionnaires will be repeated. In addition, semi-structured interviews and focus groups will be conducted with key stakeholders including parents, school staff, student council, and politicians involved in the regeneration process. Walking interviews will also be organized with the students to investigate their use of the regenerated park, and impact on physical and mental well-being. Qualitative data are analyzed using content analysis whereas quantitative data are analyzed using pooled cross-sectional regression.
Results: Preliminary results from the observation show that the students have little space for physical activity in the schoolyard. Basketball dominates and is primarily played by boys, whereas most girls gather in groups and socialize, but hardly are physically active. Restlessness and a need for movement was observed among students in the afternoons. Going to the local stores to buy food was a popular activity. Results from the questionnaires confirmed sex differences and that the students have little to do during recess. Few students reported using the park before regeneration, primarily because it was experienced as boring, dark and muddy. More results will be available in the fall of 2025.
Conclusions: If our results corroborate findings from other studies, the regeneration of the adjacent park may contribute to increase physical activity and outdoor presence among students.