Teach-Primary-Issue-19.3

www.teachwire.ne t | 23 A sk pupils about their thoughts on school, and the same three things will come up every time: friends, toilets, and lunchtime. Not lessons. Not homework. Not the quality of teaching, safeguarding, or other Ofsted tick-boxes. Just three simple things about their daily experience. But let’s think for a moment; in your school, who is actually in charge of each of these things? Maybe friendships fall under pastoral leadership. Toilets, if they are overseen at all, are typically the responsibility of cleaners or facilities managers. And then there’s lunchtime. Who is truly in charge of that? Not just overseeing duty rotas or monitoring queues, but actually making sure lunchtime works as it should. Is there enough time to eat? Are children getting the chance to run, play, and talk? At Teacher Tapp, we’ve been tracking lunchtimes for years, and the picture is clear: lunchtime is shrinking. The Raising the Nation Play Commission found that school playtimes have reduced by an average of 19 minutes over the past two decades. And it’s worst in the poorest areas – 56 per cent of schools with the highest proportion of free school meals offer a lunch break of under 45 minutes, with 16 per cent giving just 30 minutes or less. School leaders often cite budget cuts, making it harder to pay for lunchtime supervisors. Which might explain why only nine per cent of primary teachers believe there is enough supervision during lunchtimes and why, when asked about the worst time for pupil behaviour, 66 per cent of primary teachers say lunchtime. So yes, cuts make financial sense. But when lunchtime disappears, so does something much bigger. For many children, lunchtime is the only part of the day where they get to choose. They decide where to sit, whom to talk to, what to do. For those who struggle in the classroom, it can be the one moment they feel free. And for children who don’t ‘play out’ after school, it might be their only chance to run, climb, or just be a kid. Sadly, play is disappearing, too. Teachers tell us that the playground games they remember from childhood – skipping ropes, tag, hopscotch – are fading fast. Eighty-seven per cent of primary teachers say traditional playground games have declined. Nearly 40 per cent say they’ve disappeared altogether. When we ask why, the answers are bleak. Screens have replaced street games, and fewer children ‘play out’ at home. Schools, stretched thin, can’t afford to replace broken equipment or train lunchtime staff to lead games. One teacher told us that without playground markings or equipment, their pupils stand around, unsure of what to do. w .teachwire.net | 17 A letter to... With budget cuts eating away at our lunchtimes, we need to reclaim time for ourselves as well as for our pupils, says Laura McInerney Each issueweaskacontributor to penanote theywould love to send Class teachers Laura McInerney is an education journalist, public speaker, and co-founder of Teacher Tapp. @TeacherTapp teachertapp.com VO I C E S Another said their pupils struggle with games because they’ve never learned the rules. And when children don’t get a proper break, the effects ripple through the school. On a typical day, 60 per cent of primary teachers say they end up using lesson time to resolve lunchtime conflicts. If you think I’m about to tell you to solve this by grabbing a rope and rushing out to teach skipping games in the playground, I’ll stop you there. Lunchtime isn’t just important for pupils. Teacher, it matters for you, too. One of the biggest predictors of whether or not you are likely to stay in your job is whether or not you have friends at work. And friendships don’t grow in rushed corridor chats or frantic emails. They happen in small, unstructured moments – over a sandwich, a cup of tea, or a shared grumble about Year 4’s new obsession with rolling down the corridor. A perfect opportunity for this is lunchtime. And yet, when we’ve asked teachers where they ate lunch that day, the most common answer is alone, in their classroom. So I have to ask again: who in your school is in charge of lunchtime? And is it working – not just for pupils, but for teachers, too? Maybe today’s the day to reclaim a little bit of lunchtime for yourself. Eat in the staffroom. Invite someone to sit down. Start a new habit. Because lunchtime is disappearing. But it doesn’t have to. From Laura “Lunchtime isn’t just important for pupils. It matters for you, too”