1. Reclaiming
Playgrounds are exciting, energetic and
scary places. We do our best to balance the
needs of the children with the constraints
of health and safety. However, this often
reduces children’s opportunities for play
and exercise. Diminished opportunity for
unsupervised playing in recent years has
contributed to children having a limited
understanding of how to organise and
manage games. This is evident in increased
levels of bullying behaviour, conflict and
the ability to only play a limited menu of
games that usually involve an element of
charging or chase! Often times children
are just bored and this tends to allow for
conflict, bullying and unsafe games to
develop. The consequences of this can be
felt after break during class time, where
lots of time and effort are spent getting to
the bottom of issues.
Schools can get caught in a loop of
‘banning’ running and certain games. This,
coupled with an increased focus on sanctions
to keep everyone safe, dilutes the purpose
and benefit of yard time. For many, yard
time can be a dreaded part of the day.
However, some simple mindset changes
that focus on positive behaviour and
organised games can change yard time
for the benefit of all. The power of play
cannot be underestimated but far too often
it is sidelined in favour of more tangible
things. In America, school districts have
been reducing and eliminating outdoor
recess time to increase tuition time. Play-
works has been a powerful advocate for
play in schools. Luckily in Ireland we still
value play, and have a good deal of time for
it in school. Play can develop responsibility,
co-operation, and resilience and thus
cannot be underestimated.
Play has long been an important element
in the ‘mix’ in Irish primary school and Irish
life. More recently, the Aistear programme
has emphasised the benefits of structured
and unstructured opportunities for play in
the curriculum. Play-based learning can be
of great benefit, contributing to social,
emotional, creative and intellectual devel-
opment. The right to play and take part in
leisure activities are an important right for
children both inside and outside the class-
room. However, it is difficult to address for
every child outside the classroom at yard
time. Not every child plays sport, not every
child is outgoing and has friends to play
with and not every child knows how to
play and organise games. The recent
Growing Up in Ireland report on obesity
among its nine year old cohort suggests
that sports policies should consider a holistic
approach that integrates and encourages
exercise. Schools have role to play but many
constraints impinge on schools’ ability to
play a more effective role. However, there
is a huge untapped potential in schools to
utilise their yard time to develop their role
in encouraging and supporting play that’s
inclusive for all. Such opportunities will
support the health and wellbeing of pupils,
with higher levels of health and wellbeing
associated with better attainment in literacy
and numeracy. Fostering, prioritising and
facilitating opportunities to play can
benefit the curriculum rather than hinder
and take time away from it.
Our school is only a sample illustration
of a focused attention on making yard
time work better for our pupils, teachers
and school. Such attention limits conflict,
bullying and lessens an atmosphere of ‘we
just had nothing to do’. Before introducing
a structured approach in our school, we
firstly agreed on the importance of play
and yard time. We were challenged to
accept that our role is more than supervisory
but that of facilitating and supporting,
50 InTouch March 2015
Cúrsaí Teagaisc
Yard time starts with warm up activities in
lines before independent play. Children are
encouraged to high five each other and speak
positively, with positive prompts on our walls
to promote the language of play.
Childrenchoosetojoingamesrunbyjunior
coaches,ornotasthecasemaybe.Thesegames
areinclusive,activeandcompetitive.Children
useamodifiedversionofrock-paper-scissorsto
quicklysolveanyplay-basedconflict.Itiscalled
Ro-Sham-Bo,andifthereareanyproblemsina
gamewesay‘Ro-Sham-Boitout’whichdiffuses
thesituationandsimultaneouslysolvesit.
After play and during our line-up, teachers
initiate cool down activities to prepare the
children for class time again
We supplement this structure with interventions
and strategies, encourage positive behaviour
and inclusive play practices.
Some children, especially younger EAL learners
need a little extra support during yard time to
be included. To support them we have a
‘Friendship Brigade’ that meets children in our
quiet friendship zone, and offers to find them
friends and initiate games. The Friendship
Brigade then go around offering skipping
ropes, tissues for runny noses, and to tie up
coats for younger children. On wet days, the
brigade go to our junior classes to play oral
language games and seat exercises to keep the
children stimulated and occupied. The Brigade
acts as a stepping stone and preparation for
junior coach roles in sixth class.
Teachers and staff have play tokens that they
reward children with (sparingly) for desired
behaviours. Classes collect these tokens and
share a goal towards a yard-based reward.
Comparatively, teachers also have log books
for negative and unsafe behaviour that are
monitored with sanctions ranging from re-
minders,timeoutsandexclusionfromyardtime.
Children who constantly present with issues
get some more tailored support that might
help them access play during yard time. We call
this Yard Bootcamp, but it is far less onerous
than it sounds. It’s simply a focus on the rights
and responsibilities of the children during yard,
with some fun, collaborative activities used to
reteach them.
Teachers and pupils are encouraged to use a
calm approach when interacting with each
other, if there are situations or incidents that
have heightened tension and emotion. The
main aim of this philosophy is to ultimately get
the children back playing.
During times where junior coaches are trying
out new games, we simultaneously teach the
children these games during PE to maximise
success during playtime. Staff are also taught
these games during staff meetings Croke Park
hours.
We have a termly ‘Yard Week’ where we revise
rules and celebrate the right to play. During
that week we remind ourselves of the right to
play and learn about the benefits of play.
Every Friday we make whole-school announce-
ments focusing on praise for good behaviour in
the yard.
We also try to limit talking at length about
issues in the yard at staff meetings. We gather
issues through feedback and discuss these in
small groups, establishing actions and feeding
back any changes to the whole staff.
We meet with the Student Council, junior
coaches and a small committee once a term to
discuss and reflect on any feedback in relation
to yard time. We ensure that the students have
a say in what affects them.
Our yard strategy

2. the yard
along with a long list of other roles and
duties. The ending of the supervision pay-
ment indicated, on the Department’s part,
a lack of understanding about what teachers
do during yard time. However, as a collec-
tive effort, the extra work for individuals
was minimal. In our school, we started by
establishing what the teachers and pupils
wanted from yard time. This was done
through questionnaires and small focus
groups. Our findings indicated that, for
teachers, a programme must have value
for pupils in class and outside of class.
Teachers felt any initiative should help
reduce the levels of bullying, conflict and
tales that children bring back into the
classroom. This would increase teaching
and learning time and give them the class-
room back after breaks. Pupil responses
indicated a need for more opportunities
to play, as they felt there were so many
rules that they could not play any of the
games they knew. Pupils also wanted to
be recognised for their positive behaviour.
They wanted to be caught being good.
Consequently, we wanted to implement
an initiative that could meet both pupil
and teacher needs.
There are many frameworks and
approaches that schools use during yard
time. Some are common sense and some
are more structured. As a school, we set
three priorities for how we would develop
and view play time. We wanted;
Clear rights and responsibilities of
children for play time (rules and
consequences).
Junior coaches trained to organise and
manage a variety of inclusive games that
need very little equipment (promotion
of activity and exercise).
Teachers acting as facilitators of play,
with a focus on positive interactions
with children (modifying and developing
the teacher’s role).
We adopted the Playworks approach as
it fits nicely with what we were already
doing. We then fixed on a vision for our
yard time that ‘every child plays every day’.
Through trial and error, we developed yard
strategies that are contextual and focused
on our school’s needs. In our school we
promote friendship, play, safety, conflict
resolution, and respect through the strate-
gies and intervention we employ. When
children are on yard there’s a structure and
system to the time, just like in class. (See
‘Our yard strategy’ panel)
After three years of these incremental
interventions on our yard, behaviour and
play is moving closer to our vision. Not
every day is great. Not every child responds
positively to the interventions and not
every day are we enthusiastic about facili-
tating play going out to yard duty. But
most days we try. The value of promoting
play has had a huge positive impact in our
school. Teachers and pupils alike notice
huge differences in yard time.
If you want to improve your school’s use
of yard time, the first step is to reflect on
what is working already. Then reflect on
what is not working and create actions
that are relative to your context that
promote and support a vision for play. Try
some different things to see if they work
and are beneficial to the staff, children and
school. It will mean extra work but the
benefits will far outweigh the work. If you
want to reclaim your classroom, staff
meeting time and general mental health at
10 o’clock on a Monday morning, why not
try some different interventions and
approaches, and reclaim your yard!
Paul Knox,teacherinCastaheanyEducate
Together NS, with special interest in
enhancingyardtime.Twitter@PauldeChnoic
www.playworks.org
InTouch March 2015 51
Teaching Matters
Thevalueofpromotingplayhashadahuge
positiveimpactinourschool