We want to take a closer look at our provision for play and dinner times. Recent reflections are that the quality and variety of our offer has – if we’re honest – dropped off a bit. It was great – it’s really not great at the moment; OK but not great. There are reasons for this; lack of staff and resources chief amongst them and at the root of all this is, of course, lack of money. There are lots of schemes and programmes available to implement, but a school in our financial position cannot afford the best of them. What we can do though is try to make the most of what we have here and we think we can do better.
What do we have?
- We have a huge amount of space. We’re lucky in this respect. Many schools only have a rudimentary ‘yard’.
- We have a dedicated Multi Sports surface, which does get very good use.
- We have a climbing wall – currently scheduled for restoration and/or replacement with another climbing facility. We’ve already gone to quotes for this and would hope to address it this year.
- We have the very popular trim-trail
- We have the quiet playground with the role-play areas – teepee, amphitheatre, outdoor classroom etc.
- We have 8 outdoor table tennis tables which are well used, mostly by children in upper Key Stage Two.
- Early Years have their own special play spaces and are not particularly the focus here. Clearly though, one day they’ll be out on the main play areas much more.
- We have an outdoor multi-gym which again is quite popular
- We have a large field, currently dedicated to two football pitches or one football pitch and one cricket pitch in the Spring and Summer.
- We have Parkdale Pines, but this is not accessible other than in Forest School sessions.
- We have time; each day has additional time factored in for active play, directed and free choice, on top of playtimes.
- We have two play workers available at dinner time, though recently they have been covering a lot of absence or unfilled vacancies in the dining room rather than leading play.
- We have children in Years 5 and 6 trained to be play leaders.
What is the concern?
Playtimes look a bit ‘grey’ at times, with a lot of children not really engaged in anything very active or creative. Of course, it’s fine to just chill and chat with friends for those who just want to do that, but we’d like to offer more variety and choice. We know that this is good for children, their development, wellbeing and – importantly – behaviour.
It is not reflection on the children, but generally in society it seems that young people are less able to engage in positive, creative, active play unsupported or without resources – sadly, it is the world we have created!
Observations suggest that much of the above is not being fully utilised. In Winter, children are not currently allowed on the field, meaning the pitches, trim trail, outdoor gym all become inaccessible.
Beyond football on the MUGA – which is great for those who want it – there is little evidence of organised and supervised play,
There are few resources available for free or creative play. We have had more of this in the past and have tried all sorts of approaches, probably the most durable being that each class or year group has a box of resources to take out. These still get damaged and lost, so there is always an ongoing financial cost. And environmental – such things tend to be single use plastic, shipped in from the far east. Maybe we just have to minimise and live with that cost though.
Options
One option is to do nothing and leave things as they are. We’d like to do better than that though.
We can look at providing more resources and accepting the cost and the challenges of managing those. We’d need to find out what the children wanted and could do this via School Council. It’s something we’ve done before.
We can consider a large central pool of resources, or class/year specific ones. We’ve tried both approaches in the past, Both work well for a while, but tend to ‘fade’. Maybe we just need to be more ‘on it’/
We can take the bold step of opening up the field more freely. It’s a great space. The children love being on there. It comes with things to consider – footwear, the possibility of getting a bit muddy and/or wet. Maybe the children need to learn to manage this as a life-skill? The possibility of slipping if it is damp – ditto.
We could replicate some of the resources and activities available in Parkdale Pines out on the field in general. Those not requiring some adult leadership; tyres, building materials, tyres, tarpaulins, whatever… Again, this comes with some responsibility for the children to use them safely, but perhaps they need the chance to do that and we manage it under behaviour policy when they don’t. We have amazing children who generally respond appropriately to anything like this.
Going Forward
There is a lot to consider. As a starting point, we are going to gather pupil voice via School Council. We appreciate that stakeholder might have an opinion or some great ideas to share. With this in mind, we’ve opened a brief survey online. Your views would be very welcome. We’re a team, a community these are your children and this is your school.
This is our first step and we’ll be developing an action plan as a matter of priority.
