Positive Play - Additional Info

An activities manual and guide for Positive Play at break-times

by Val Sabin 2004

How can you create a positive and active playground without spending thousands of pounds? A wealth of possible answers and creative ideas can be found within this most comprehensive and user-friendly manual.

Section 1, The Introduction, identifies the reasons why it is important to promote a positive and active playground:

• to improve their health
• to allow children to develop positive social skills and work out their own rules of behaviour
• to help reduce the incidence of bullying
• to provide a safer environment

and recognise the importance of the informal curriculum and the role of the adult in encouraging and enabling play.

Schools are encouraged to walk around the boundaries of the school and playing areas to identify where improvements could be made and a detailed breakdown of how to create different “zones” for play also attacks the problem of football taking over the playground. Many creative ideas are introduced to create and enhance the essential “quiet” area and there is a detailed section on the suitability of different types of small equipment and how to organise its storage and use.

Creating an interesting environment does not necessarily mean children will become more active – they need to have games to play and the environment needs to be safe for the activity.

The major section of this manual is Section 2 and is devoted to presenting all the different, simple, health related, curriculum related, traditional and new games you could ever need in the playground. The games are clearly presented – one game for each A4 page – in such a way that they can be photocopied and lamminated and be presented in a games box which can be taken out with the equipment each lunch-time and will serve as a reminder for those children who “don’t know what to do!”. The games are clearly sectioned into the following categories:

1. Problem solving and creative games and activities
2. Games and activities using small equipment
3. Games and activities without small equipment
4. Chasing games
5. Challenges
6. Quiet games
7. Structured mini-games and parachute games

and suggestions are made for introducing and encouraging playground games. All together there are 156 games and activities for outdoor play.

The remaining 50 games and activities have been identified for indoors in Section 3 and have been designed specifically to cater for the dreaded “wet lunch-times” and “wet break-times”. Within this section, guidelines are also given for the organisation and presentation of the indoor games.

Section four of the manual is a photocopyable information booklet – “The Lunch-time supervisors guide to Positive Play” which includes:-

(a.) The safety and welfare of pupils
(b.) The lunch-time supervisors role
(c.) Raising the profile of lunchtime supervisors
(d.) Effective play needs a positive environment
(e.) Organising the play environment
(f.) Encouraging playground games
(g.) Wet weather! – indoors!
(h.) Encouraging positive behaviour
(i.) Retaining the children’s respect
(j.) Steps for intervening in serious conflicts
(k.) The attributes of a lunch-time supervisor!

and can also act as a guide for schools on how to raise the profile of lunch-time supervisors and update the organisation and imparting of information, also to increase the levels of communication between the Supervisors team and between supervisors and staff.

The final section is devoted to the identification of a wide range of playground markings. If there is very little funding available, it is possible for schools to purchase playground paint and create their own markings, using ideas in the manual.

N.B. Most outdoor games can be played without the use of markings, however, if they can also be played on particular types of markings, or they need specific markings, they have been identified at the bottom of the card. this means that children can move to the right area for the game.

Tips for overcoming common problems

Throughout the manual there are several commonly asked questions or problems encountered by lunch-time supervisors, and a variety of tips are given to support ways of overcoming them e.g.

“The small apparatus we provided was quickly lost”
“Children didn’t seem to know how to play games”
“ Safety – how do I utilise the unseen corners”
“ I dread wet lunch-times – children just don’t know what to do with themselves”

Positive Play Training

There is a one-day training course available which enables the participant to become a licensed trainer and to take 2 – 2 ¾ hour courses for lunch-time supervisors.

There is also available a Positive Play equipment pack of suitable and safe equipment especially for lunch-time use. This pack can be used in conjunction with the “Positive Play” manual.

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