Lunchtime is led by midday supervisors who were never part of the school’s behaviour approach
The school has a clear behaviour approach in classrooms, but the hour at lunchtime is run by adults who were never brought into it.
Class teachers and teaching assistants share a clear way of doing things, and most lessons run well. Lunchtime is different. It is led by midday supervisors who work a short shift, were not at the training day and often find out about changes from the children. Problems from the playground walk back into afternoon lessons, and the adults who handle the hardest hour of the day have the least say in how it is run.
Presenting symptoms
- Afternoon lessons start late while teachers sort out what happened on the playground.
- Midday supervisors use their own sanctions and phrases, which differ from what children hear in class.
- Incidents are reported to class teachers in passing at the door, or not at all.
Possible causes
- Midday supervisors may never have been trained in the approach, because their hours do not include training days or staff meetings.
- The approach may have been written for classrooms, with nothing that works in a busy dining hall or on a field.
- Children may have learned that lunchtime adults cannot follow anything through, so their word carries less weight.
- Midday supervisors may feel they are blamed for lunchtime without being given any say in how it runs.
They were never taught it, or told what it asks of them at lunchtime.
Your most useful next step: Find a paid half hour with the whole lunchtime team, show them the three or four routines and phrases that matter most, and practise them together using real lunchtime moments rather than classroom examples.
Lead behaviours
They know it, but children do not respond to them as they do to teachers.
Your most useful next step: Be on the playground and in the hall yourself for a fortnight, using exactly the same words as the midday supervisors and visibly backing their decisions, so children see that the expectation does not change at twelve o’clock.
Lead behaviours
They pass problems on and never hear what happened next.
Your most useful next step: Agree one simple way for incidents to reach the class teacher before afternoon registration, and make sure the midday supervisor who reported it is told what was done.
Lead behaviours
They have their own way of doing things and see the approach as the teachers’ business.
Your most useful next step: Ask the lunchtime team what makes the hour hard, use what they tell you to shape the lunchtime routines, and name them as the people who lead that part of the day.
Lead behaviours
Core behaviours
Lunchtime has its own routines: lining up, going into the hall, clearing away, coming in from the field. These need to be designed for the space and taught to midday supervisors and children alike, not assumed from the classroom.
Children notice quickly which adults expect what. If the words, rewards and consequences change at lunchtime, the classroom approach is weakened for the rest of the afternoon.
Midday supervisors are often parents, grandparents and neighbours who know the children and families well. Knowing who they are, what they are good at and what worries them tells you how to bring them in.
A midday supervisor who understands why the approach works the way it does can make sensible calls in situations no policy describes. One who has only been handed the rules will fall back on what they know.
Secondary behaviours
Use this where reports from lunchtime disappear. Closing the loop with the person who raised it is what keeps them raising things.
Use this where the lunchtime team feels like an afterthought. Small, regular signs that their work is noticed change how they lead the hour.
Use this where midday supervisors see the approach as something done to them. They know where lunchtime goes wrong better than anyone in the building.
Use this where children treat lunchtime adults differently. Your presence alongside them, using the same language, lends them authority quickly.
A useful first action
Spend one full lunchtime this week with your midday supervisors, from the first sitting to the bell. Afterwards, ask them which two moments of the hour are hardest and what would help.
Suggested approach
- Watch a whole lunchtime and note where and when problems start, and what the adults say and do at those moments.
- Agree with the lunchtime team the few routines and phrases that matter most at lunch, adapted from the classroom approach.
- Train and practise them together in paid time, using real lunchtime situations.
- Set up a simple handover of incidents to class teachers before afternoon registration, and tell the reporting adult what happened next.
- Review lunchtime with the team each half term, and thank them publicly for what has improved.