Even break times are designed to support students to build character and resilience.
Year 7 and 8 students take many nurturing leadership roles over the break times organising experiences and supporting younger children.
Sometimes in attempts to reduce risk, the joy of being a child is accidentally removed.At Green Island School, we believe supporting and trusting children to learn about making respectful, responsible and safe choices during play prepares them for the challenges of life and builds confidence in their ability to make choices.
The children have many opportunities to demonstrate self-regulation. They experience play as responsible, respectful and safe when enjoying the creative play activities during breaks and lunchtime.
Raincoats and Boots
The school supplies sets of raincoats and gumboots. Light rain and overcast conditions are not barriers for the children to enjoy being outdoors.
Encouraging a child to go outside in all weather builds resilience, but more importantly it saves them from spending their life merely tolerating the ‘bad’ days in favour of a handful of ‘good’ ones- a life of endless expectations and conditions where happiness hinges on sunshine.
Student Ideas and Games
Many activities enjoyed in the break-times have been initiated by the students. The senior students have developed a game similar to volleyball. The students have created the rules and objectives of the game and teachers have facilitated the process of this.
The activities organised for lunchtimes also include passive play options. Some children may enjoy curling up with a good book or playing a board game in the library rather than running around. Enjoying time to relax in the quiet is also a life-long wellness skill we encourage.
The Year 7 and 8 students volunteer to train as students who run organised games for younger students during break-times.
Wide Open Spaces, even a Flying Fox
The school has extensive grounds including lots of natural spaces for the children to explore. There is a running track and large field, large sealed areas for ball games. The senior play area has netball and basketball courts and a turf area for volleyball. Our school recently built a flying fox which is very popular.
Scooters and Bikes
Scooters can be brought to school and used on our scooter track. There are many places for students to store their scooters and designated areas for them to ride them.
The school has a large container which stores our school bikes of many sizes, so having your own bike is no barrier to learning to ride. The school offers senior students a variety of cycle education programmes learning to cycle safely in many environments and make full use of our school’s bike track- sometimes class daily fitness is biking!
We have a school trailer which can transport enough bikes for us to do tracks all over our region, to take to camps or use on tracks locally.