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Older kids had to walk around the basketball court during recess?
This may sound strange, but this usually did not happen in this school. Years ago, I went to an elementary school, and this school was ran by an amazing principal and some of the greatest memories I've had was when he was principal.
Unfortunately, he retired and the new principal came in the beginning of my last year of elementary school. She changed everything (the appearance inside, the playground sets, etc.) But the strange thing about the one rule she enforced was that the older kids had to walk around the basketball court during recess. Not part of recess, but the whole recess. Every day for the whole year. And it wasn't all kids, it was just the older ones. Sixth graders and possibly fifth graders. I'm not sure what grades had to do it, but I know the younger ones did not.
I witnessed younger kids, kindergartners and second graders come out from lunch and they played on the new playground set or on the soccer field. The older kids got in trouble for even stepping out of the basketball court. Obviously the basketball court was not being used because there were 30-40 kids walking around it.
I have always been curious about why that happened. I asked a few of my friends if the same rule was enforced for them, and they have never heard of such thing. My question is, was there a law that was passed and said that 11-12 year-olds are no longer allowed to have recess? Or do you have any idea/opinion why this rule was enforced?
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Advicemans ideas I agree with, most likely to keep older kids separated from the younger ones. I attended an elementary that had two playgrounds. One was for K thru 3rd grade, while 4th grade and up was in the lower playground and the reason then was to protect the younger children and that makes sense. There was even a fence separating the two and a playground supervisor who watched the gateways to be sure there was no leaving or entering a playground you werent assigned to. The principal likely had knowledge of or experience with playground issues due to older and younger children mixing. So she wanted to avoid the potential problem and took it upon herself to solve it this way which is totally unfair. If there wasnt enough space to split playgrounds, then separate recess and lunch breaks for the age groups would have been better. WHat should have happened is enough kids complaining to the parents and the parents getting involved. That would have meant the principal now had to come up with a team of other school workers who would work together to come up with the best idea to problem solve. She wasn't creative enough and didnt ask for help and input is her problem. This was one persons crazy idea that is not a rule for all schools and not a law.
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This is something most likely of the principal's own doing. There could be many different reasons for this. The biggest one would be to keep the older children separated from the younger ones to avoid any problems. Another would be to ensure the older children work off the excess energy they may have. Both of these are somewhat strange reasons for doing so.
A better way to separate the age groups is to split the lunch period. This is far better than having one group walk around for however long the recess period is. This is something the PTA and parents should take up with the Principal and the Board of Education if need be.
What Public and Private school educations provide over home schooling is the ability to learn how to socialize properly within your class and in your school. Socializing is a very important part of growing into an adult . By being in school you learn how to get along with others.
Forcing older children to walk in a line around a basketball court does not allow them the important time needed to learn to socialize or allow teachers to observe and correct inappropriate behavior.
Hopefully you and others will take the appropriate steps to change this. The school must either allow the other children to have a true recess or split the lunch periods so the older and younger students are not outside at the same time.
This can very easily be done with in the same time period. Have the younger students eat lunch then go outside. While the younger students are having lunch the older students are outside enjoying a recess. When the younger students have finished their lunch. They go outside for recess while the older students come in to have their lunch.
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There is no law. That would be ridiculous.
There may be physical health guidelines to keep the older kids moving, but not laws.
Whatever the reason the principal probably had the authority to make this rule about recess. It may have been to keep the older kids moving, and not just sitting down chatting. It could be to keep them from getting into trouble or interfering with the play of other younger kids.
Whatever the reason, I'd agree it's a pretty messed up way to try and solve whatever problem the principal thought there was. I would hope the parents would complain about this prison-like tactic and get it to change.
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