A couple of things

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Home : 2003 : February : 23

A couple of things
By Julianne

No matter what size the group or how rowdy they are it's always a good idea to have more than one adult out on the playground with them. What do you do if a child is really hurt? You can't leave the other 59 to attend to
the injured one. If someone gets sick or runs off you need another adult to cover the playground while you get the help needed. That's a point to bring up with your principal. I once had to leave a group of about 150 third and fourth grade students to escort a child with a broken wrist into the office. Not pretty. The policy of having one teacher on recess duty changed overnight.
I

work in a school similar to what you describe. But our playground is pretty tame mostly because we have a schoolwide discipline policy. If a child has a problem with me on the playground he KNOWS he's going to have to answer for it to his classroom teacher. It appears that your teachers don't take that responsibility. Maybe that's something to discuss at your next faculty meeting. It can make a big difference in how things run if everyone knows the rules and every teacher enforces those same rules with every child.