At St Mary’s we are committed to increasing the level of physical activity at lunchtimes and a wide variety of activities are on offer for pupils. We talked to our children to find out what they wanted at lunchtime and we acted on their recommendations.

We employ three specialist sports coaches daily alongside our lunchtime organisers and our playground is zoned to ensures a wide variety of activities are available.

Lunchtime has its own behaviour expectations with rewards for excellent behaviour including 'good lunch vouchers' and our VIP table which operates once a week.

Regular lunchtime activities include (activities are rotated to ensure activities don’t become stale and not all clubs are on every day):

Cricket, Football, Rounders, Basketball, Space hoppers, Trim trail, Skipping, Dancing/outdoor instruments, Climbing areas and trim trail, Forest School activities, Giant Jenga, Giant Connect 4, Multisports, Lego club, Kapla construction club, M

inecraft code club, walking club,loombancds club.

We also have quiet zones for those times when the children want to chill out and relax.

Last year one of our governors evaluated our lunchtime provision as part of a degree. The key findings were overwhelmingly positive in terms of the children's enjoyment, their increased physical activity at lunchtime and improved concentration levels for learning in the afternoons. The area that came out as needing improvement was the variety of sports that girls took part in. Since then we have worked with the coaching company to ensure that this has been addressed.

Play Leader Scheme

The play leader scheme allows the year 5 and 6 children to facilitate activities for the younger children in the school.  They deliver a broad range of activities, some of which are sport specific and some that are solemnly just to get the children more active at lunch time.  Not only has this scheme added to the structure of lunch time activities, it has given the year 5 and 6's invaluable experiences and provides them with responsibility to deliver high quality activities.  This children will continue to develop their leadership and communication skills through this.