At the end of last term and throughout this term, Year 1 have been engaging in ‘structured play’ activities a couple of times a week with Mrs Bradshaw and myself.

Structured play is any activity that offers children a specific learning objective. It could be learning a certain life skill, soft skills such as teamwork, or working on physical abilities such as gross and fine motor skills.

Structured play activities and games are generally teacher led. We set the tone for the play and then help the boys to either meet their goals or review the learning objective. Some of the learning objectives we have focused on so far are those involving team work, sharing, cooperation, giving compliments and using the appropriate language when communicating with peers.

So far the boys have engaged in activities involving board games (Connect 4, Kerplunk, Tumbling Monkeys, Jenga), construction (Mobilo, Duplo, train sets, cars), dressing up and role-playing various scenarios.

Structured play is an activity that many of the boys obviously look forward to. It is typically towards the end of the school day when the boys have already worked hard throughout the day. Since the boys have started to engage in structured play, I have noticed an increase in the use of some of the ‘soft skills’ in the classroom and on the playground – communication, courtesy, interpersonal skills, responsibility and teamwork.

The boys now also have further opportunities to engage with these soft skills during lunch and recess times, as some of the activities are now on offer in either the library or on the playground. The uptake in boys across Junior Primary engaging with these activities during recess and lunch times has been high which I hope will continue into the future.

Sam Watson – Year 1 Teacher