School bans "unstructured play" during break times

[Kokeshi123]

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56568473

Hackney New School claims to have eliminated bullying by banning unstructured games (football---or even things like skipping) by kids during their breaktimes, replacing them instead with poetry recitals and chess clubs.

Apparently the kids are allowed to get some exercise.... during PE classes, but sports are "more structured" and supervised.

Anyone else think this is really bad? Kids need a lot of running-around time. The amount of weight gained by a lot of kids in lockdown should serve as a rebuke to those who think that kids will get enough exercise by being nagged to exercise by adults; they need to blow off steam and run about playing their own games. I also think it's very important for children's social and emotional development that they get to direct their own activities sometimes, without being constantly micromanaged by teachers or parents.

Having chess clubs and supervised activities as well as the regular playground activities would be completely fine--but why ban kids from playing their own games?

I would also wonder if this might just push the bullying to spill out on the way to and from school where teachers can supervise and intervene less.

Oh so they do get to play sports during lunch time

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/east-london-school-claims-it-has-eliminated-bullying-by-banning-unsupervised-sports-and-play-at-break-times/ar-BB1f70sk?ocid=BingNewsSearch

Christ.

Who'd be young now

It's an interesting idea and good on the school for trying something new, but while it eliminates bullying in the short term, what about the ability to occupy yourself and problem solve without the intervention of adults?

My eldest child has SEN and they spend a lot of time working on social skills, self regulation and independence. I do wonder if NT children might also benefit from this approach too. I'm not sure all this structured stuff is teaching the pupils that.

Bloody hell if they are genuinely bullying free that is incredible considering they were in a very bad state back in 2019
www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2019/09/09/ground-zero-hackney-new-school-found-inadequate-across-board-damning-ofsted-report/

@orangeorangery I agree with your comment. My feeling is that the head very little choice, but to do something.

Eliminating bullying is more important for pupil welfare than running about at playtime.

When you remove unstructured play girls often get more exercise. 9/10 mixed sex schools tend to let boys dominate the playground with football or tag. Skipping isn’t actually that common any more for girls over 8 - most girls over 8 just huddle on the edge of the playground.

yanbu

children need unstructured play.

bullying behaviour needs to be addressed but not by telling children to sit on their arse all day.

I don't think it's a bad idea at secondary level.

My children get 30 minutes at lunch and don't want more - time to get to toilet eat food and talk a bit with friends not in their classes. Even with that small amount of time they've often lamated there aren't more clubs reliably on and they aren't allowed their phones out.

I used to get an hour - I was so much happier when I discovered the library and carrer library and how to get back into buildings without being sent back out. A few boys used to play football on playgrounds taling all the space everone else standing near doors talking and waiting. In summer we had to go on front fields - no ball games no going back into libraries no sitting down - no shade and we had to have blazers on - everyone hated that.

And as for the students not knowing the capitals of the world, surely this is covered in the curriculum? Why the need for a club?

@DaenarysStormborn

Why does structured play mean less movement? If they said it was chess every lunchtime then fair enough but the majority of school lunchtimes is spent arguing about who can play, what they should play and who is left out including conflict because some of the are playing 'wrong'.

I agree some unstructured play is good for their imagination but I can see why they've decided to introduce it. Children's social skills have been drastically limited by covid. Some structured play might teach them how to play with more people in a less confrontational way and therefore be beneficial?

I think the opposite. It's important for children to learn to occupy themselves, use their imaginations, and even experience minor conflict and stress - it acts as a sort of innoculation against anxiety and stress as adults, it builds resilience. If a child has been shielded from minor stress they are unable to cope with major stress. A common complaint from head teachers of secondary schools is that children coming up from primary have no ability to resolve minor conflicts themselves. Some of the reason UK produces such innovative research, music, technology is because the creative side has been allowed to develop in school rather than pure rote learning of academic subjects.

lamented - complained/wished for more clubs not lamated.

I was in secondary school from 2005-2010. Break was most definitely not used for skipping. The boys and a few girls set up football or basketball in multiple places whilst everyone else gathered with their friends around the school. Unless you were the bullies, you avoided other groups of people as much as possible. We all gathered in the same places each day which made it easier to find friends.

Structured ‘play’ probably wouldn’t have appealed to us because we just wanted to hang around and chat. Having some optional activities would maybe have been good for those who did want to do them or wanted the chance to make friends.

@GrumpyHoonMain

When you remove unstructured play girls often get more exercise. 9/10 mixed sex schools tend to let boys dominate the playground with football or tag. Skipping isn’t actually that common any more for girls over 8 - most girls over 8 just huddle on the edge of the playground.

Not at any primary school I've ever seen. (I am a TA).

Kids need a lot of running-around time. The amount of weight gained by a lot of kids in lockdown should serve as a rebuke to those who think that kids will get enough exercise by being nagged to exercise by adults; they need to blow off steam and run about playing their own games.

Secondary school children really don’t do this at lunchtimes. They hang around in groups. But they will burn calories if required to attend netball/hockey/dance/cricket club.

A common complaint from head teachers of secondary schools is that children coming up from primary have no ability to resolve minor conflicts themselves.

We do try to teach children independence for solving their own problems in primary but it’s not easy when you’re dealing with still quite young children. Often when they try to sort it themselves, they make it 1000x worse!

How ridiculous! I visited a school where the head proudly told me they had almost no accidents - it turned out that was because the children had no access to outside space during the school day and even ate their lunch at their desks in their classrooms. I went and found a school with more accidents.

My son would love this. The kids who struggle at break times are often the ones who are being picked on.

My son would have hated it. He spent most break times and lunch times playing football on the school field.

I don't think poetry and chess would have appealed to him.

And isn't it kind of obvious why bullying within the school has reduced over the past year?
And bullying outside of schools we are often told by schools, oh well tough shit, not sure what you expect us to do. When one of mine was getting bullied, I contacted the police directly because of this.

As a parent when you're looking around surely that's one of the things you look at? Lunch time and after school activities, not just the Ofsted results?

We had something similar to this at the primary school I attended in the 90s. They called it ‘organised play’ .

The children were put into groups, with one or two from each year per group. Each group did a different activity at lunchtime, on rotation, so one day it would be football, the next skipping, an obstacle course, running etc.

One of the days was an indoor creative activity. That was my favourite. I hated being forced to spend my lunchtime doing sports and never getting to spend any time outside of classes with friends in my year group.

It was crappy and was part of the head teacher’s obsession with health (she would start assemblies by asking the children what colour their wee was that morning).

It lasted about six months. Then the school got a bad Ofsted report and was shut down.

Lets not allow children freedom to explore their own fantasy (an important part of development) and form their own social connections on their own terms.

Lets just brainwash them and declare the state an authoritarian dictatorship where free thought and free choice are frown upon because doing anything thats not set for us is viewed as 'not constructive', where we don't think, we just do as instructed by authority, because god forbid we come across 'bad influences'.

Who oversees all these structured things? What happens to people who have been so institutionalised when they are kicked out the end of the system and find they don't have anyone micro managing their time and social interaction?

FFS in terms of child development how much is this fucking up the kids?

Perhaps they should structure their systems to actually deal with bullying properly - which occurs inside and outside the school rather than trying to create a system that doesn't prepare kids for the world at the end of it and pretends that if bullying occurs off the premises the school are off the hook and have 'dealt' with the underlying issues. Its just burying heads in the sand going 'la la la not our problem anymore'.

Jesus wept.

Children need to play. If they aren't very good at it, they need more practice, not less!

No kids do skipping at secondary school! Football yes but no skipping or It or any other running around games.

I don't think this is a bad idea at secondary level but aren't they just talking about lunchtime clubs which should be provided anyway? Or do they mean they HAVE to choose an activity instead of just hanging around/