How Principals Can Improve Playground Supervision

As principal, you play a crucial role in ensuring the safety and well-being of students during playground activities. Below are some important suggestions for principals on how to improve playground supervision, and student safety, at their school site.

Develop a comprehensive plan for playground rules and procedures that address safety, behavior expectations and equipment, and communicate and develop these with staff. Communicate these with students, teachers and parents also to ensure everyone understands these expectations and related consequences. In 2017, the US Department of Health and Human Services, in Conjunction with SHAPE American, published a Strategies for Recess in Schools Document [1] that is a free download filled with resources for planning a comprehensive recess program for elementary schools. Download button below.

Provide training and ongoing support to all playground supervisors, including teachers, aides, and staff members. Ensure they are familiar with the rules of the games, behavior expectancies, procedures ie. (freeze bell), consequences for violations ie. (playground report), and how to respond to emergencies, and know their role as a playground supervisor.

Peaceful Playgrounds, Inc. has a Online Playground Supervision Course that takes approximately one hour and includes a quiz concluding with a completion certificate and professional development hours upon passing.

The course covers: 1. Where children are injured, injuries vs accidents, playground laws and regulations, surfacing, 2. Supervision zones, before, during, and after recess responsibilities, 3. Dealing with behavior problems, respectful intervention strategies, redirection of unsafe behaviors 4. Legal liability, standard of care, tips for reducing liability, general standard of care, inappropriate games and activities and how to limit your liability and 5. Hazards: surfacing, public use, maintenance, and inspections.

This plan should include the number of supervisors needed, the areas of the playground that need supervision with areas of responsibility that rotate through the day to different zones ie.(blacktop, grass, play structure, and benches). See diagram below. Monitor playground supervisors to see that active supervision is achieved throughout the day during recess, lunch and before and after school release time. Supervisors should not just stand in one place and watch children but move around their area and interact with children when appropriate. This will help them to be more aware of what is happening and be able to intervene if necessary.

Provide Playground Supervisors with a vest or something that identifies them and sets them apart so that students can easily identify them as someone they can go to for assistance. It can be as simple as a vest or Tee Shirt. At my school, we purchased a Home Depot tool apron and one of the playground supervisors ironed on a school logo over the home depot logo. At the time, it cost $5 per apron. The Playground supervisors carried the playground reports and a pen in the pockets.

The National Program for Playground Safety also has a nice playground kit with a colorful waist pack that you might consider. The National Program for Playground Safety also has a nice playground kit with a colorful waist pack that you might consider.

Supervisors should be proactive. Supervisors should not wait for problems to happen. They should be looking for unsafe behaviors and actively be watching to intervene. They should also be scanning the play area for potential hazards.

Create a positive and supportive environment for supervisors. Supervisors should feel comfortable reporting problems and asking for help. At the same time, principals should periodically monitor playground supervisors on the playground to ensure that is it being done effectively. They can do this by observing supervisors, reviewing incident reports, and through the feedback they receive from children and parents.

Collaborate with teachers: Work closely with teachers to reinforce playground rules and expectations in the classroom and playground. Encourage them to incorporate lessons on playground safety and support playground supervisors in their unique role of keeping children safe on the playground.

An administrator or custodian should conduct regular playground assessments. Conduct periodic assessments of the playground and its equipment to identify any safety hazards. Address these issues promptly by repairing or replacing equipment, and ensure routine maintenance is carried out or notify the appropriate district maintenance repair person.

Administrators have an extremely important role in keeping children safe on the playground. When a school faces litigation, the principal will oversee the school site process and gather together the discovery documents requested for the case and coordinate with the school site personnel who may be deposed, ie. the playground supervisor/s on duty, the classroom teacher, the school nurse are depositions taken in a lawsuit, and these personnel are also often called in a court case, if it goes that far. The school will be asked to provide training sign-in sheets, training agendas for playground supervision training and date/s, first aid training, behavior management training, playground rules, school behavior rules, bullying rules and procedures, etc. injury procedures, parent notification procedures, etc. depending on the situation of the lawsuit.