Start Here: Tools to Revitalize Your Schoolyard

If you’re a municipality, a school, or a sport organization, and you want to transform a schoolyard into a shared, inclusive, and active space, this page is for you.

Below, you’ll find free resources tested across Europe — from governance templates to communication materials — to help you start, manage, and grow your schoolyard regeneration project.

Understand the Opportunity

Discover how schoolyards can become much more than recess spaces. This report highlights common barriers, showcases inspiring European cases, and provides the foundations for community-led transformation.

Research Report – Why Schoolyards Matter

Set Up the Right Framework

Clarifies who does what. This document helps you build a balanced partnership and avoid conflicts before they arise.

Roles & Responsibilities – Municipalities, Schools & Sports Clubs

A practical guide for municipalities on how to formalize the shared use of schoolyards — including draft procedures, contract models, and useful checklists.

Administrative Management Protocol

Step-by-step instructions for any local actor who wants to activate or improve a schoolyard. No prior experience required — just community spirit.

Guidelines: Adopt a School Playground

Mobilize and Communicate

Transforming a schoolyard isn’t just a technical or infrastructural process — it’s a movement that needs people on board.

That’s why communication and local engagement have been at the heart of this project from day one. Whether you’re a school principal, a municipal officer, or a community coach, you need to bring others with you: parents, students, neighbors, local associations.

Start small. A few posters on the school gate. A photo series on your town’s Facebook page. A short video of the kids using the new long-jump track. These simple actions can spark curiosity, conversations — and eventually, commitment.

We’ve learned that every community has its own “ambassadors”: a PE teacher with vision, a city technician who believes in public space, a local councillor who wants results. Give them visibility. Let them speak. Support their leadership.

And remember: you don’t need a big campaign to start a big change. You just need to open the gate, and tell the story.

If you’re ready to start your own project — or just want to connect with others doing the same — you’re invited to explore the Schoolyards4All Alliance.

See the Map of Regenerated Schoolyards
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