The Out of Classroom Curriculum.

Creating environments for recreational and social pursuits outside classroom time  will have positive benefits on the total school curriculum and minimise behaviour problems .

 

There is a strong and long held belief in teacher ranks that children are the responsibility of the teacher whose class they are in during class time and they are the responsibility of the unlucky poor sod who is ‘on duty’ or in the vicinity for the rest of the school day.  This institutionalised view has given rise to the unpopularity of ‘doing duty’ or ‘on the beat’ or ‘on duty’ or any other of a dozen negative terms which all indicate that the time with children when not in class is not to be recommended and is seen somewhat as a policing duty to uphold and enforce the law to make it safe for all.  It is not common to observe teachers in playgrounds chatting and interacting with children unless they have been rostered on, and even then some make an art form of being late for their ‘duty’.  Some school systems have moved a step further away from their duty of care through their teachers and given the supervision responsibility to aides and other paraprofessionals, no longer requiring the playground curriculum to be part of the teachers’ responsibilities.  Some systems even employ armed guards and they really are ‘on the beat’.  It is my belief that for teachers to be able to present the best learning opportunities for the learners in their care they need as complete a picture of the total child as possible.  This includes seeing the child interacting in as wide a range of social and sporting and challenging environments as possible.  How much more do teachers discover about their children when they take them on camp!  Observing children in a school playground environment is a most enlightening and satisfying ‘duty’. 

 

For many children the most important part of their day at school is during their lunchtimes and recesses, the playtimes and the breaks, before school and after school, when they can socialise according to their own personal needs. It is also when some get up to a great deal of mischief and even bullying, with the least chance of being detected.  Few schools put as much energy and thought into the ‘Out of Classroom Curriculum’ as it deserves, for the aftermath of a violent or disruptive play break impinges mightily on the effectiveness of the learning which is planned for after the breaks.  The main reason that the ‘non-important’ subjects are taught in primary schools in the afternoons after lunch is that the ‘hard work’ for the day is over, the literacy and numeracy data deep subjects. The afternoons can then be seen as less structured, less important and so the time wasted sorting out the fights and the rows during lunch playtimes is not seen as so important.  Some teachers love it, as it covers for their lack of planning and preparation for the science or the social studies or the art or the concert practice or whatever other ‘unimportant’ topics are on the afternoon agenda.  Some teachers ignore it and send the problems somewhere else to be sorted out by someone else, usually someone in administration.  Some teachers short circuit the system by sending their scallywags to time out rooms before they can terrorise the playground, for some other hapless individual to supervise.  Most teachers though would choose to not have the lunchtime disruptions come into the classroom each day but feel powerless to do anything about it. That was the way it was when they were at school and that must just be the way school will be into the future.  

 

There is no need for this situation to exist if a school should choose to review its practices and come to the realisation that it is missing a big chunk of the daily learning for all children by not planning and resourcing the part of the curriculum that kids say they love the best, their breaks and recesses, the ‘Out of Classroom Curriculum’. It is also missing the opportunity to learn a great deal more about its pupils if there is no opportunity to see them in a broader learning environment and interacting with their social peers, or playing sports or just sitting alone. 

 

If a school should see the need to minimise the potential problems of the playground and seize the opportunity to enhance the total school curriculum there is a number of steps it can undertake towards that end.  I list these as a number of phases.  However before committing itself to such a course, complete staff and parent support with anticipated social and educational outcomes would need to be sought and supported.  Pupil support is also a vital key to success.  

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I have presented in this slideshow the many phases and steps we went to great lengths in creating our 'Out of Classroom Curriculum'  that maximised pupil participation and enjoyment and minimised bullying and antisocial behaviour.

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