Skipping, hide and seek and tag are the playground games Britons most remember, finds study

Skipping, hide and seek and tag are the playground games people remember most fondly from their school days, it has emerged.

A study exploring the school years of the nation’s grown-ups revealed the break time activities they miss most from the playground.

Other popular playground games which made the top 10 include what’s the time, Mr Wolf?, rounders and rock, paper, scissors.

One in five enjoyed marbles, while 19 per cent enjoyed the free-for-all chaos of British Bulldog.

“School is a place for learning, but some of life’s most important lessons are taught outside the classroom and in the social mixing pool of the playground," said Greg Tatton-Brown of online casino Casumo, which commissioned the study. "Our achievements at break time may seem insignificant now, but back in the day a hard won game of marbles or a shattered skipping record are likely essential experiences in forming the kind of people we become in adulthood.”

It also emerged more than four in five thought break time play helped to teach them valuable life lessons.

Overall 57 per cent think playground activities helped them to develop team working skills and 44 per cent think it aided the development of their hand-eye coordination.

Two in five believe more difficult children on the playground taught them to be gracious in defeat, while 38 per cent think striving on the playground helped to make them more determined and confident in later life.

The results also revealed some firm gender lines between particular playground activities.

Games such as skipping, cat’s cradle and hopscotch were far more popular with female students, while marbles, conkers and British Bulldog were the favoured activities for boys.

Hide and seek, kiss chase and tag were able to cross gender boundaries and be popular with all children at break time.

As for games Britons think would not be allowed to take place on modern playgrounds, conkers was first, followed by wrestling and kiss chase. British Bulldog and leapfrog are also activities considered too physical to have a place on modern playgrounds.

Sixty per cent think modern children are overprotected at school and should be allowed some more rough-and-tumble play.

Playground games with more freeform rules were popular with over a third of once British school children, while one in five enjoyed organised games and sports more than the activities they made up with their friends.

Twenty nine per cent regularly concocted their own absurd games on the playground during their breaks.

If Britons had the opportunity to go back to their school years and do them all over again, 40 per cent would work harder, 28 per cent would worry less about their school work in hindsight and one in four would study different subjects to follow a different career path.

Mr Tatton-Brown: “Our study seems to indicate that British pupils, who are now all grown up, rather enjoyed the creative, fun and occasionally hazardous nature of break time play back in their childhood.

Top 10 playground games:

SWNS