Training P6 and P7 children to be Playground Buddies has been a successful Active School programme in Glasgow for the last 10 years. Basically the idea is that we train P6-7 to play games at lunch time with P1-3. It is a win-win situation as the older children love the responsibility of leading the games and the younger children love playing the games.

This term (August to September 2015) I have been working with three of my schools, Craigton, Hillington and Sandwood taking a P6 or P7 class for four weeks. Each week they learn how to lead games following a 5 step checklist …..

• Name the game
• Explain the game
• Demonstrate the game
• Question the children to make sure they know how to play
• Play the game

Plus here is a summary of what I have been doing with them each week ….

• week 1 – characteristics of a good and bad buddy
• week 2 – how to deal with problems in the playground
• week 3 – working together as a team
• week 4 – a chance to put into practise what they learnt by leading games with a younger class

The training has gone really well and the classes have taken part enthusiastically.

Here are some photos from Hillington PS, Sandwood PS and Craigton PS from week 4 when they played games with a younger class ….