Help Children Enjoy Lunchtimes

Lunchtime supervisors get the hungriest, noisiest part of the day, usually with little training and no teacher nearby when a game of football turns nasty. Children soon work out which adults will listen and which they can play off against each other.

The techniques teachers use to manage behaviour work just as well outside. Call across the field from low in your voice and you sound in control rather than frantic. Scan your zone and you'll see the moment a group stops moving and starts to bunch up. When a row does break out, there's a clear routine: hear each side in turn, check with a reliable witness, then ask the children what should happen next.

Small changes in wording help too. Put "thank you" on the end of a request and children hear that you expect it done, and "not today" goes down far better than "no".