Children should be given ten minutes extra play time each day to make up for the loss of socialising during the pandemic, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has urged the Government.

Play has been “eroded” in recent years and must be prioritised to reverse the negative impact of lockdowns on children’s wellbeing and development.

The British Psychological Society and several children’s charities – including Young Minds and Save the Children – are also backing calls for extra play to be added to the school day.

In a joint letter to Robert Halfon, the chair of the education select committee which has launched a new inquiry into children’s mental health, they say the Government should “put back an additional 10 minutes of play into the school day”.

Wellbeing should be a priority

They also argue that children’s mental health and wellbeing should be a priority in the catch-up efforts following the pandemic.

Schools are legally required to divide each day up into two sessions, with a break in the middle between the two. But there is no national guidance on how long this break should be. It is instead left up to each school’s headteacher to decide.

A recent study by University College London’s Institute of Education found that just one per cent of secondary schools now have afternoon breaks compared with 41 per cent almost three decades ago.

Researchers examined how school breaks and children’s social lives have changed over time by comparing data from more than 1,000 primary and secondary schools in 2017, 2006 and 1995.

Soical lives have change

The study, published in 2019, showed there had been a “marked reduction” in the total amount of break time children are allowed, with 11 to 16-year-olds now having 65 minutes per week less than they did a quarter of a century ago.

During the pandemic, ministers raised new concerns over schools slashing children’s break times when they reopened after the first national lockdown.

When the bubble system was in place, official advice from the Department for Education said that schools should “consider staggered break times and lunch times” so that different bubbles do not mingle with each other.

In some cases, this led to breaks being shortened while in other cases, children were told they were only allowed to use a small section of the playground to ensure they did not come into contact with pupils from other classes.