Are you safe? Are you respectful?

What are the PHS Playground Rules?

We posed this question to a class of 75 grade three students this afternoon.

Can you guess how many responses we received? Well, nearly every hand went up and after having three students respond, almost every hand was still high in the air desperately waiting to add to the conversation. Many answers (this exercise was repeated a few times prior to this class too) consisted of 'Don't do this...' and 'Don't do that..' and 'You're not allowed to...'. 

We anticipated this.

That's why our Phys Ed team is encouraging less rules.

Be Safe

Be Respectful. 

These two rules are unique because they encourage students to think critically. It's our observations that children who have the capacity to think critically of their actions, the actions of others and their surroundings are building much stronger understanding to what is considered right and wrong with respect to rules and expectations. 

We hope over the weeks to come that children will be asking themselves, 'Are my actions safe? Are my actions respectful?' rather than 'Is this allowed?'.