We Need To Talk About…Playground Duty
Chuckle Brother impressions, dust devils, a vicious T-rex – the weird and wonderful world of school playtime
- by Jonny Walker
‘That can’t be right’, I opine to myself, as I notice that I am down for a two-hour lunchtime duty in the playground every Friday.
“That’s what we do here”, my new colleague replies (I had accidentally spoken aloud – a bad habit). “We find that having leadership supervising lunchtimes stops most playground problems affecting the afternoon lessons.”
Well I can’t argue with the logic, so I steel myself for the great unknown. I button up my coat, don a hi-vis and step out.
The first hour is for Reception and KS1 and I stand like a towering neon lighthouse amidst a spiralling sea of noise as the sub-four-footers of Stratford pour out of classrooms and staircases.
A circle of Y2 boys is already huddled conspiratorially in a corner, sorting out their missions and quests for the next hour. Beside me, a Y1 girl attempts valiantly to skip, despite the rope merely bashing the back of her calves each time she tries to jump it. She persists.
I hear a sound like somebody has dropped a bag of chips, and turn to find a Reception boy has tripped over his feet. ‘Oh dear, oh dear’, I say northernly – realising instantly that I sound like a Chuckle Brother – while I help him up and pat his back. I tell him he’ll be alright because he can put some magic water on his knee. He immediately perks up.
As I crouch to do his shoelaces, a Reception child with a completely inscrutable face appears beside me, blinks, pats me on the head with a splayed palm, and walks off in silence. I stand up and a sponge ball ricochets immediately off my glasses. I hear laughter but I don’t know where it comes from.
I wander about for a while, as the children are called class by class for lunch. A freak gust of wind blows dust from the building site next door and in an instant, everybody stops playing in order to grimace and wipe their eyes.
As I check my watch, a Y1 child holding his fingers like claws strikes me in the hip. He stands defiantly, baring his teeth at me. I call upon my limited KS1 experience to think what to do or what to say. “Are you a lion?” I query. This question provokes a flurry of playful strikes.
His T-Rex mate gets wind of it and they team up. I deal with it as maturely as I can, by pointing behind them and looking into the middle distance with wide eyes; when they look around in confusion I run away, making affected fearful screams like Kenneth Williams.
I check my watch and raise my hand. Within 10 seconds the skipping ropes fall slack, the kids go silent and the sponge ball that assaulted my spectacles rolls lamely through our tableau. They line up ready to go in, as the older kids arrive at the gate, waiting to sprint out and reclaim the space. The young ones trundle away, the lion growling as he goes, and then the noise becomes two octaves deeper as Y6 swagger out.
New skippers arrive. A Y4 child attempts to scale the head of a gigantic frog-shaped bin and I worry he will fall into its big yoghurt-flecked mouth.
The sponge ball flies over into the building site and 50 boys chant, ‘Builder builder builder’ at the workmen, who ignore them.
A girl approaches me and says she has nobody to play with. I look over and see another girl wandering around in a small circle on her own. I bring them together, get them to pull a funny face at each other so they laugh and then tell them to try playing with each other. They do so for the rest of the break.
A cerebral intellectual from Y5 comes over to enquire about my favourite chess piece. I suggest bishop; he prefers knight. He speaks so quietly that amid the din, I can only make out about 60% of his words, so we have a stunted conversation, like characters in a David Lynch film.
I check my watch. Another child I don’t know walks up to me and stands silently, so I ask her, “Do you like having nice conversations?” She nods, so we have one.
Jonny Walker teaches Y5 and is geography co-ordinator at Elmhurst Primary School, Forest Gate. Check out his blog at jonnywalkerteaching.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter at @jonnywalker_edu.
