Picture Refs: 78711-33/32A PLAYGROUP leader thinks there is "too much danger" to let children play unsupervised.

It comes after National Play Day encouraged children to get off the sofa and get stuck in with supervised outdoor activities at the Ridgeway Leisure Centre.

And about 250 children from 11 summer holiday clubs across the town were racing around the sports field, competing in athletics competitions and jumping around on a giant bouncy castle.

National Play Day seeks to show children that there are lots of fun things to do outside, while they get fit at the same time.

Toadhall Nursery took along ten children from its summer holiday club to the centre yesterday and they all got stuck into the fun and games on offer.

Nikki Silver, playgroup leader, at the Old Town nursery thinks there should be more fun days such as these which give children a safe environment to play in out of doors.

"The problem nowadays is that you never know who is lurking around outside so you constantly have to watch children.

"Activities like this mean they can get outside in the fresh air and parents know they will be safe.

Other sporting activities including tennis, football, basketball and a giant bouncy castle kept the more energetic children busy while arts and crafts, board games and books made sure they had time to cool down away from the warm sunshine outside.

The play day was organised by Swindon's SureStart partnership.

Kim Poulton, Children Development Worker at SureStart who helped run the day is delighted it was such a success. She said: "I think it's up to parents whether they let their children go out and play on their own but organised events like this do mean they are safe."

As we reported in yesterday's late edition of the Advertiser, National Play Day comes after a report by the Children's Society said children are too afraid to leave their own home to play.

The children taking part in the activities in Wroughton had mixed views.Some said they enjoyed playing sport outside and it is not scary while others said they preferred to stay in and play on computers.

Recreation facts

During term-time nearly one in five children play out for less than one hour a week.

Even in the schools holidays one in five children play out for less than four hours a week

Seven per cent girls never play out during the school holidays (compared with four per cent boys)

Nearly four in ten children do not play out as much as they would like to.

Girls are more likely than boys to say they don't play out as much as they would like to (43 per cent compared with 35 per cent).

The top priority for things that would make children play out more if it was safer.

Over one in five children put this as their number one priority. Girls were more likely than boys to put this top (25 per cent girls, 19 per cent boys)

When asked why they didn't play out more only 22 per cent said they played out as much as they wanted to. Older children were twice as likely to give say their play areas were too far away from home (15 per cent compared with 8 per cent).

Lyndsay Scanlan