Schools warned of ‘Squid Game’ playground games

School students are acting out scenes from the smash Netflix hit Squid Game, but teachers say they are concerned about the show’s violent content.

Queensland school kids are acting out scenes from the global Netflix hit Squid Game in the playground, with teachers raising concerns about the show’s extreme gore and violence.

Squid Game features adult contestants competing in deadly versions of childhood games such as ‘red light, green light’, and has already racked up more than 100 million views on the streaming platform.

The show features the graphic deaths of hundreds of people as the games progress, with desperate and in-debt competitors vying for a multi-million dollar prize.

Multiple teachers have reported kids, some as young as eight, pretending to shoot each other, play dead, or even punching the children who “lose” the games.

One Brisbane high school teacher told The Courier-Mail it appeared the majority of her year 7 and year 8 students had seen the series, which she described as “appalling”.

“I only watched the first couple of episodes myself, because all the students were discussing it - they were asking me if I had seen it so I thought I better take a look,” she said.

“I didn’t expect it to be as violent and contain as much death as it did.”

A scene of South Korean Netflix show "Squid Game" Season one. Photo by: YOUNGKYU PARK / Netflix / AFP

Another said they had witnessed children “playing dead” in the playground while holding “competitions”, and had urged their school principal to write to parents to warn them about the show.

Other teachers have said that children as young as year 3 have been heard urging their peers to watch, with clips available on YouTube and social media platform TikTok.

This week New York primary schools banned Squid Game Halloween costumes following reports of increased playground violence.

Glasshouse Christian College principal Mike Curtis recently posted a fact sheet on Squid Game to the school’s website, and encouraged all parents to talk to their kids about the show.

He also wrote that he strongly encouraged parents not to allow their children to watch it.

“Squid Game .... has themes of extreme violence and suicide,” he said.

“Yet children as young as six have been mimicking the games in the playground,” he said.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said it was aware of “various viral activities circulating through social media that are impacting student behaviour”.

“(The department) has a range of preventative and response systems in place to ensure schools are well placed to address any emerging problems,” she said.

“It is important that parents work with schools to ensure young children and students are not exposed to inappropriate media, film and computer game content.”

Queensland Teachers’ Union vice president Leah Olsson said teachers managed a “broad range of student behaviour issues on a daily basis”.