To 'phone the school at the end of our road to ask why the playground supervisors are standing around having a chat....

[Bubble99]

When they should be supervising the children?

DS2 has come home in the past telling me that (fairly worrying) X,Y and Z stuff has happened in the playground but that the grown-ups 'weren't around to see it.'

Seems like more of the same.

I think that it is good that kids have as much unsupervised play as possible to be honest.

though of course if their is a problem the kids should know where they come to...

kids need to be on their own to sort out their own problems whenever possible

Most stuff that happens in teh playground isn't seen. Just not poss usually.

But if three playground supervisors are employed to supervise the children, shouldn't they be doing just that?

Breaks are for having a chat, surely?

There are a few 'blind-spots' in the playground where all sorts can happen.

How do you know what they are talking about? They may be discussing the well being of a child in the playground and the best way to deal with it.

I do playground duty and SHOCK! I talk to my colleagues. Not all the time, but we do have to pass information on.

I was stuck behind a builder's van for at least five minutes.

During that time I watched the staff chatting and comparing arms/stomachs, presumably comparing tans or something? Trust me, this wasn't remotely child related.

This hit a nerve as, at the beginning of the year, I collected a very muddy-shoed and subdued DS2 from school. Later in the evening and with many tears , he told me that he had spent most of one of his playtimes being pushed down a muddy bank at school by a group of children in his class who had decided that they didn't want him to play with them. Every time he tried to get up, they pushed him over.

Of course playground supervisors can't see every small incident, but I don't see how they can miss prolonged bullying, as happened to DS2.....

Unless they are standing around in a group elsewhere, having a chat.

YANBU I have nothing against the odd cat etc.. but IME DS had his nose broken and other injuries by another child, whilst the supervising staff WERE NOT supervising...

The staff are there for a reason, they get paid for it, they should be doing there job!.. TBH playtimes etc aren't exactly hours long are they? I know they can't watch all the children all of the time, and it's nice if the children can get on with playing, but I would hate someone else family to go through what we did because someone wasn't doing their job.

No yanbu I am having problems with dinnerladies at the moment .

chat.. not cat!

Our infant playground was one of those rather quirky ones with corners, so difficult for supervisors to see everywhere. What they did instead, and I think this was brilliant, was to train the children that they had to look out for each other and report straightaway if a child was hurt or frightened. This meant that not only were children looking out for their mates but if say a child in Y1 was being bullied, any child from another class who passed by would know what to do- and they did.

We have a playground buddy system. Each playground area has 2 yr6's to help sort out problems and support children who are unhappy. They are given some training to do this. There are adults present of course as well but most of the children prefer to approach other children (and to Yr1s Yr6's are almost adults anyway!)

I have no problem with adults chatting to each other when supervising - they can't be everywhere anyway and as long as they are available so the pupils can find them when neccessary that should be enough. Our school is an Victorian one with lots of little seperate areas in it - it would be impossible for a supervisor to be constantly watching each bit - they have to rely on children getting help when needed.

We have a buddy system, too - there's a 'friendship stop' where a child can sit if they have no one to play with and one of the playground buddies will go to them.

Still need to have adults moving around the playground to check the blindspots, though - rather than standing together chatting in a group.

No, YANBU.
At the primary school our kids used to go to, a 9/10yr old was tied to a tree with one of those plastic things used to hold up saplings, had his glasses taken off and stamped on. Those who went to help(including one of mine0 were hit with bamboo poles that made bruises.
The playground assissants spent all playtime with the 5yr olds. Too much bother to sort out the older kids, so they tended to ignore it.
The head "didn't have time " to see the mother of the bullied boy for over a week. When I asked her the next day what she was going to do about it, she "explained" it had been a "game" which had gone wrong, which was quite possible, but a game that should have been diverted in my view, to a different sort of game.
I was livid.