Playground Working Party meets together for the first time

Playground Working Party Meeting Tuesday 26^th February 2019

Present: Fletcher P4B, Frankie P4A, Alejandro P5A, Sophie P5B, Christina P6A, Matthew P6B, Mahnoor P7A, Ashkin P7B, Mrs Agate, Mrs Mackay, Mr Burgess

Apologies: None

• Welcome: Mr Burgess : Importance of play – Mr Burgess explained that we spend up to 20% of our school day in the playground. He asked what skills we learn when we are outside, Alejandro said we developed sharing and co-operating, Frankie said we do PE outside and Alejandro said that we also include others in our games. As a group we covered social inclusion, physical development and social and emotional skills as ways we develop during play.

 

• Aims of the group: What problems do we face? :

 

Our playground is crowded at times, particularly at morning break.

People can often push into the teepees and P1’s feel they are being pushed off trim trail by bigger pupils.

Different types of bullying behaviour is seen outside. Teasing and verbal insults, physical arguments and exclusion of people from games.

The back playground is cold and shaded and rarely sees the sunshine.

Not enough resources for children to play with outside.

 

• Action Plan: Plan, Do, Review

 

Following the ‘Supporting Positive Playground’ document, we plan to use the playground action plan. We have started by gathering views from stakeholders and forming a working party. We completed a pupil questionnaire in the meeting and handed out playground staff questionnaires to be completed before next week. The Senior Leadership Team will observe playground behaviours and identify key issues which need resolved to improve play experiences. These observations will be fed back to the working party.

 

• Views of children and adults: Distribute pupil surveys, ask PSA volunteer to distribute surveys to supervisors.
• Working party members completed surveys during the meeting. These will be shared next week along with Playground supervisors feedback.

 

• Decide on main areas for development: Children and staff identified 6 key features to develop at playtime.

 

More space to play

More equipment for example climbing frames

Play buddies to support play outside

More and better placement of bins

A chillzone for upper pupils

Indoor play options during playtime

 

Mr Burgess explained that we will explore these 6 key features next week and share our feedback from adult and pupil surveys.

 

Next meeting Tuesday 5^th March 2019