• Work With Us
    • Health Mentors
    • Schools
    • Partners
  • About Us
    • Our Programmes
      • Project HE:RO
      • XLR8
      • LEAP
    • The Evolve Journey
    • Keeping Children Safe
    • Meet the Team
    • Hall of Fame
  • Resources
  • Our Partners
  • Careers
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Video
  • Work With Us
    • Health Mentors
    • Schools
    • Partners
  • About Us
    • Our Programmes
      • Project HE:RO
      • XLR8
      • LEAP
    • The Evolve Journey
    • Keeping Children Safe
    • Meet the Team
    • Hall of Fame
  • Resources
  • Our Partners
  • Careers
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Video

How Lunchtime Play Leaders can modify the whole atmosphere of a school

  • Posted by Chris Lincoln
  • On 28th November 2017

Lunchtimes are notoriously one of the most challenging times of the school day for both active cognitive engagement and behaviour incidents. With statistics showing that children spend less time ‘playing’ outdoors in their free time than the previous generation, young people today are lacking the experiences and knowledge to produce their own games and activities during lunchtimes at school. Cue boredom and minimal physical engagement that can lead to behaviour incidents and potentially modify the atmosphere of the school for the rest of the afternoon.

However, structured play helps to support a variety of key skills whilst ensuring such behaviour incidents are minimal. Focussed activities allow for social integration, the development of physical literacy and works towards the Public Health target of 30 minutes physical activity taking place within the school setting each day.

Yet engaging the whole playground in meaningful activities can be an arduous task if the number of adults available is minimal. So, why not call for the support of Upper Key Stage 2 children to improve engagement levels whilst developing their own leadership and organisational skills?

A key focus for many Evolve Health Mentors within the schools they are deployed is to train and upskill Year 5 and/or 6 students to lead stations of activities for their younger peers. The benefits are threefold with the Play Leaders developing vital key skills that can be used later in life, activity levels increasing amongst the rest of the school and the Health Mentor afforded more time to support various activities rather than just one they may have been leading previously by themselves.

Several schools have already commented that the use of Play Leaders helps to decrease the number of behaviour incidents and develop more confident Upper Key Stage 2 children after training to lead active and inspirational playground activities. With a calmer return to class, the benefits of such an exercise on academic attainment is also undoubtedly going to be positive.

For more information about how an Evolve Health Mentor can support your school in such a critical area of the day, contact Josh Cronin on josh@evolvesi.com.

 

0 Comments

Leave Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts
  • New Managing Director Appointed
  • Evolve Selected for top charity scale accelerator
  • Project HE:RO and the THRIVE Framework
  • How a summer of trepidation for pupils and parents can be nullified by an Evolve XLR8 course
  • Will schools be able to cope with new mental health education plans?
Categories
  • Apprenticeship Levy
  • Blog
  • Careers
  • Case Studies
  • Community
  • Health Mentors
  • News
  • Parents
  • Pupils
  • Uncategorised
  • Uncategorized

How can school teachers benefit from professional PE CPD?

Previous thumb

Ofsted call for the gap to be closed between EYFS and Key Stage 1 provision

Next thumb
Scroll
Keep in Touch

Keep up to date with all of the latest information from Evolve using your preferred social media channels.

From Our Blog
  • New Managing Director Appointed 29th August 2019
  • Evolve Selected for top charity scale accelerator 16th May 2019
Latest Tweet
  • avatar
    Have to graft for everything.. regional manager for London @EvolveRedhead cycles to all of London schools.. Smoothi… https://t.co/IyVMAdXrid23rd June 2022 - 12:05 pm