Play - Eat - Learn
Starting Monday we are trialling PLAY - EAT - LEARN in our school.
This is a programme that many schools throughout Christchurch and New Zealand have implemented with great success. It is aimed at improving the well-being, health, focus and learning of our students.
Dr Kathleen Liberty, an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury advocates for the Play-Eat-Learn programme. Her research shows the body physiologically responds differently to the two activities – Playing and Eating:
Play – the body response is more aroused and heightened.
Eat – the body response is to naturally calm.
The aim is to provide a time to focus on eating in a calm, settled way. To decrease arousal levels prior to learning, so the quality of the learning and the ability to focus and concentrate improves.
To help our students to focus on their learning, we have reviewed and revised our timetable. This is included below. The biggest change is that the students will go straight out to morning break and at lunch time to play. At the end of these breaks students will come inside and sit as a whanau to eat. While students are eating teachers will read to them, reinforce Positive Behaviour of Learning (PB4L) messages and be able to follow up any issues or student concerns arising from the break times.
We ask you to support this initiative by placing extra food in your child's lunchbox. We continue to encourage healthy options as the research shows that children learn best when they are eating energy providing, non sugary foods and are well hydrated. Water is also very important for students learning and we ask that all students have a named drink bottle at school each day so they can access water throughout the day.
To help our students 'eat to learn' we will be encouraging the eating of a complex carbohydrate snack, such as popcorn or a wholemeal bread sandwich with butter, peanut butter or marmite, during healthy snack time at 9.45am. Snacks of this type provide students with a slow energy release throughout the morning and improve concentration for learning.
Below outlines our school daily timetable as of Monday 20th May:
PLAY - EAT - LEARN
Learning Session 1 - 9.00 - 9.45am
Healthy Snack - 9.45am eg: Sandwich or popcorn
Learning Session 2 - 10.00 - 11.00am
Play - 11.00 - 11.20am
Eat and read - 11.20 - 11.30am eg: Sandwich, Bar, Fruit
Learning Session 3 - 11.30am - 12.40pm
Play - 12.40 - 1.20pm
Eat and read - 1.20 - 1.30 eg: What’s left in the lunch box
Learning Session 4 - 1.30 - 3.00pm