Background Information
Longfield Secondary School, Darlington has fantastic sporting facilities, including a swimming pool, tennis courts, indoor gym, extensive playing-fields and a running track. Yet, even despite this, the lunch hour was proving problematic. Discipline problems prevailed both on and off-site, as students were becoming bored. So it was time to take action and transform this hour into an engaging time of healthy, sociable activities.
Action
The school decided to
- introduce a stay-on-site policy for all pupils
- insist on a written request from a pupil’s parent/guardian before allowing that pupil off-site at lunch time and then, only on the condition that they go straight home. (If they abused this privilege then the pass would be withdrawn.)
- introduce active lunchtimes, encouraging pupil participation in new activities and sports
- enable students to pre-order grab-and-go lunch bags if they were taking part in activities to ensure they could do both and not miss out on a healthy school lunch
- share responsibility for managing the sports facilities around the school – 10 minutes into the lunch hour, the gates to the sports field, tennis courts and equipment storage are opened and staff hand over the responsibility of the facilities, to the students for their use. There is no structured activity but students are encouraged to try new things, work together and to tidy away in good time
- provide access to indoor facilities in bad weather
- train Y11 students to be sport leaders; they help supervise, organise and promote activities.
Impact
Since the introduction of the stay-on-site and active lunchtime policies, improvements have included:
- a decrease in the incidence of complaints from the local community
- improved attendance figures
- an increase in attainment year-on-year since the programme was introduced.
Challenges
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. With any new initiative there are new issues and lessons to learn. For Longfield, these included the following:
- at first there was only a small gate that students used to access active lunchtimes. To solve this bottleneck, the school introduced a double gate system that speeded up access
- there have been issues with equipment becoming broken, but these were mostly due to actual wear and tear
- the field is not fenced and students were still wandering off-site. In these cases, those students were banned from active lunchtimes for two to three days.
Tips
Ensure that there is an infrastructure to support and develop the lunchtime. Work with the staff and pupils to establish:
- responsible sports leaders
- a wide range of activities
- responsible teacher/staff to lead on the project
- a whole school approach.
Contact details
If you would like further information about this case study then please contact us on 0114 2996901or alternatively email the School Food Trust at info@childrensfoodtrust.org.uk
