Does anyone's school have a playground buddy system?

[3littlefrogs]

• or a place where children who have nobody to play with can sit, so that a "buddy" will come and join them? If so, does it work and how?

(dd has come home in tears - again -because she has been deliberately excluded by the girls who decide who is "allowed to play")

Yes we do. It works quite well afaik. It also helps to cut down the obvious forms of bullying in the main playground.

At DD's school the P7s (and possibly the P6s as well?) act as "playground buddies". They wear "buddy hats" so that the other kids know who they are and can seek them out. They help organise games and I think especially look after the littlest ones. Like bakedpotato's dd, my dd in P1 is just in awe of the P7 buddies. She has lots of P7 friends and frequently says she plays with them at lunch or break time if her own friends are off doing something else or whatever. They also look after her if she gets hurt (DD's knees and the hard playground don't get on!). I think the reverse side of this is that the P7s really seem to enjoy the responsiblity of looking after the younger kids.

Yes we have a buddy bench as decsribed by other posters. If a child is shy or has no friends, an older child is given to them as a buddy, who then looks after them during playtime and helps them to settle in and make friends

It is really interesting to read all these ideas. I passed the info to the head, and she is considering it.

There are a couple of girls in dd's class who have "problems" and issues about manipulation and control. I suppose there is always one in every group, but these things get worse as the child gets older and the behaviour is allowed to continue unchallenged.

Thanks again everyone for your comments.

Is she in year 3? I only ask - and sorry if you have already said- because all my dd's have had problems with other girls when they get to that year. I asked a teacher about this and she said it's when girls in general start to assert themselves and tussle for "queen bee" place! Saying that, dd1 always had trouble with the social side of school ( so hard isnt it), yet now she is in a secondary school she loves she is enjoying that side of things and has made at last some great friends. Hope you have some good news from the head. The buddy bench is a great idea, we use it and on the whole it appears to work well.

I suppose the problems escalated in year 3, now she is in year 4 it is just as bad.

ds's school has a friendship bench and playground buddies (this in a school of 36 pupils!) and it works well. Mind you, there is a great atmoshere in eth school anyway. They also have a pile of playground equipment that the "buddies" can bring out - balls, skipping ropes, plastic golf sets etc.

My dd`s year 3 class has a "friend of the day" but the children rarely bother to look out for anyone who may be alone, they just tend to stick with their own friends as usual. You are dead right about year 3 girls CLD. My girls school could pick up a lot of ideas from this thread.

My twins school has a playground buddy system and a buddy bench. One of my twins is a playground buddy and she wears a special hat in the playground. She keeps an eye out for children who are alone or upset and encourages them to join in or finds out whats bothering them and often comes home saying how she's made new friends this way She's 7, I do wish she would be a buddy to her twin sister though

In my son's last school where he started in reception class they had a buddy system, where every year 6 child buddies a reception class child, and they have them to play with at break and lunch time and to go to lunch with. It was really successful, and my son settled really quickly and often came back of names of the 'big boys'. I feel this carries on through the years and encourages children to be generous when playing with others, and then they get their chance to buddy when they reach year 6, seeing it happening every year to those that move into the 6th year makes it an exciting and responsible 'job' to have. It was great, they also had a buddy bench where much like all the other comments say, they wait and someone will come and play with them. His new school is not as good in that respect and although they have a buddy bench I am not convinced it is used that much? they are such a good idea though and if implemented properly with everyone understanding the reasons for it, it will be a success.