Playground Friends
Introducing our Playground Friends
Our Playground Friends scheme plays an important part in creating a safe, friendly, happy and peaceful atmosphere for children during lunchtimes on both of our campuses
Who are they?
Year 4, 5 and 6 children take on the role of Playground Friends. The friends really enjoy their responsibilities, and not only do they make the playground a happy place for all the children, but also offer a great help to the staff on duty at lunchtime.
What is their role?
- To help all children to learn how to play cooperatively with each other.
- To help children resolve minor conflicts.
- Teach children to play a wider range of games.
- Help lonely children make more friends.
- Most importantly, be available as a friend to all the other children.
How do we spot them?
Look out for their Hi-Vis vest with our school logo on.
How did they get to be a Playground Friend?
Through a rigorous process of applying for the post, having an interview and attending 6 hours of workshops as a training programme run over a few weeks in January and February 2017
Playground friends offer suggestions not advice. The training explored how to use restorative approaches when resolving problems.
During their training and as an on going reflective process each week the Playground Friends are learning
- to be active listeners
- to care for others and understand their feelings
- to ask open ended questions to find out what happened or how someone feels
- to summarise a story and name feelings
- to be aware of how someone is feeling and how things affect them and others
- to empathise with others
- to be able to assess the situation and consider ideas for solutions-ideally from the children involved
The Playground Friends will also learn new playground games to play that they can teach to other children at lunchtimes.