Your School Playground Markings Journey With Pentagon Play!

Spring is arriving at long last! It’s a wonderful time of year with longer days, brighter mornings (hopefully!) and warmth in the sunshine on the horizon - bringing us all a renewed sense of excitement for getting outdoors and making the most of it! 

Around this time of the year, many schools and nurseries are thinking about preparing or improving their outdoor learning environments, ready to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities for learning that the spring/summer season brings.

There’s a lot going on in nature as the first shoots are appearing from the ground, leaves are beginning to show on trees, birds are busy preparing their nests and the weather is giving us a full display of everything that it has to offer - children can learn so much through observation, just from being outside.

And of course everyone (teachers included) wants to spend as much time as possible in the fresh air when it’s like this, because it’s good for our health and good for the soul.

Interestingly, out of all the enquiries that we receive here at Pentagon as we come out of the winter monts, Playground Markings are by far one of the most popular products that schools and nurseries ask us about. It’s understandable - they bring a great opportunity to quickly brighten up the playground with easy-to-install active games, educational play and spring/summer sports options for all children from EYFS through to KS2.

So, we thought it would be helpful to outline exactly what our customers can expect on their ‘playground markings journey’ with Pentagon! Transforming tired old playground floors to vibrant and engaging spaces as a cost-effective, long-term solution for all kinds of fabulous outdoor play and learning activities - we can pretty much do anything!

Initial Enquiry - Can We Do This?

Yes! As with all of our playground project enquiries, when schools and nurseries first contact us, you will come straight through to one of our brilliantly knowledgeable and super friendly (of course!) Outdoor Learning Advisors - Hollie, Lisa, Siobhan and Emma. 

They will have an initial discussion with you about what you might be looking to achieve, and seek to establish your timescales. At this stage the conversation can be as broad-brush and ideas based, or as specific and detailed as you like.

Perhaps you have seen something, somewhere that you would like us to replicate in your playground? Or you might’ve had a look at all the different playground marking designs on our website? 

Often, schools have already identified an area of their playground that they would like to see improved, but they aren’t quite sure of designs and would prefer to be led by us. All of the above is absolutely fine - anything goes and of course we’re here to help!

At this stage you can send us some images of the outdoor spaces that you want to improve, and also any images of playground markings that you may have seen and would like us to recreate for you, too. We’ll take a good look - it helps us to understand your current setting and make sure we deliver exactly what you’re looking for if you decide to go ahead. 

It’s really straightforward to Contact Us and you can always ask for one of the team to give you a call at a time that fits around your schedule. 

Current State of Play - We Can Sort it!

During this initial discussion, we’ll ask you if your school playground already has existing Playground Markings in place. We’re not just being nosy! It’s important to establish this first as any current markings might impact the visual effect of new markings and ultimately the end result. 

If so, we’ll ask whether you would like to keep them (usually only if they’re entirely separate from the area designated for new markings), remove them first, or have us remove them for you. 

We always say that Playground Markings are a little bit like tattoos - the good ones are hard-wearing and you can’t just wipe them off! If they’re very old, fine and faint then sometimes we can put new Playground Markings over the existing markings to save you the removal costs. However if they’re prominent, we have various removal options so we can create a fresh canvas before beginning your new designs.

Site Surveys - It’s Good to Meet You!

The next step is for one of our specialist in-house Playground Consultants to come and visit you on site.

We don’t always have to do this - if you’re having very simple playground markings and no removals are needed, we can often go off photographs and site maps. However, our on-site consultations are always free and with no obligation to go ahead, so it’s definitely worth doing to make sure we can get everything spot-on for you!

We’ll take some site photos with your permission, and this will help us to prepare your designs back at our desks.

So Much Choice!

We’ll provide you with a copy of our Playground Markings Brochure so you can take a look through it with us, or in your own time. We have hundreds of different design options for you to choose from and the brochure is categorised to make your job of selecting your favourites a little easier!

From Sports Markings and intriguing follow-me Trails for physical education, to Educational Games, Numbers and Letters to enhance learning - Traditional and Board Games, Characters & Objects for playtime fun to Footprints, Targets and Hopscotch for balance and coordination - we can even create bespoke ‘real-life’ Roadways for active and engaging role-play and learning about the world around us - in short, there is very little that we can’t achieve for you!

Our brochure includes details and dimensions so you can map out your designs on your playground to get a better idea of scales. We can also chalk out designs on your playground for you first, to help you visualise the size and space. 

We’d like to emphasise here that adaptability is a huge part of what makes our unique playground designs so good. We can make your choice of playground markings to more or less any size and specification, and don’t worry - with our bespoke capabilities we’re good at tweaking things here and there to make sure your end result is exactly what you want it to be!

Installation - The Fun bit!

Once you have settled on your final Playground Marking design choice, it’s time for the fun bit! We make all of our thermoplastic Playground Markings in advance, off site, so when they arrive on-site with you they’re ready to lay out and stick to the ground.

The actual installation is super quick. In many cases we can finish an installation in one morning, and it’s ready for the children to play with in the afternoon! Our Playground Markings only need around 15 minutes post-installation to cool down and cure. We apply special non-slip properties to the markings during the installation process to make sure they’re immediately safe for the children to play on.

We highly recommend a term-time installation with Playground Markings as it’s a fascinating experience for the children to watch from a safe distance - imagine a giant blow torch melting your colourful new markings into the playground! We’re great with questions too - we deliver ‘toolbox workshops’, educational talks and demonstrations for children regularly. They’re welcome to come and ask us about the science behind it all!

If your school would prefer an installation during the quieter school holidays then of course we can do that too - we just need to arrange access to the playground with you (we don’t need access to the school building) and we’re good to go.

What Makes Pentagon’s Playground Markings so Special?

Having worked in the playground design industry for over 25 years, we've seen thousands of play areas that lacked the right colour, style, direction and graphics to keep children thinking and playing actively. So, our design team worked tirelessly to create vibrant and educational playground markings that bring life to playtimes.

We have created some of the most popular playground markings in the UK, keeping children engaged every day through educational, active play. With over 200 different designs for you to choose from, alongside our bespoke design and installation capabilities, our playground markings are made from the very best, high performance, impact-resistant thermoplastic - so you can be sure of a top quality finish that will last for years.

If you’d like us to help you to liven up your playground for the Summer ‘25 season, give us a call today!