I was first introduced to the concept of structured recess back when we lived in San Francisco and my wife and I were trying to figure out where to send out oldest daughter for kindergarten.  As we toured some of the schools in San Francisco Unified, several locations mentioned a partnership they had with a non-profit organization, Playworks, to offer what they refered to as structured recess.  Recess is always supervised by adults, but in structured recess, the adults engage the students in games and other structured activities.  In a sense, the adults shift from being supervisory aides waiting and watching for errant or potentially disruptive behavior and become coaches, organizing activities and promoting movement and interaction.  Interestingly, my wife, who is not an educator by formal training, immediately seized on this idea as something that she really liked about the schools that offered it.

Admittedly, I was more skeptical.  I am always a little concerned about adults moving into the spaces where students previously exercised freedom and independence.  It seemed to me that kids need opportunities for autonomy and exploration without the immediate guidance of an adult.  I considered the playground as one of the last bastions of true student freedom on most school campuses.  I also worried about how play structured by adults might interrupt opportunities for more creative and imaginative play.  Children can and do often create imaginary worlds and adventures that I worried might be missed by the games being designed by adults.  

When we moved to Southern California and I began working on the executive team in Santa Ana Unified, I discovered that the movement for structured recess was also quickly taking hold.  This time I was not shopping for schools but leading them, and soon became much more familiar with the data behind the work.  For schools implementing structured recess, playground fights and other incidents of misbehavior plummeted.  Typically, the spaces became more inclusive as a higher percentage of students were actively engaged in the fun.  Suddenly, administrators had far less to worry about at recess time.  While the structured recess program was initially expensive, most of the elementary principals strategically considered the cost worth the benefits.  During my first 2 years in the district, the majority of schools had implemented structured recess.  Eventually, the district decided it could save money by taking on the program internally, hiring and training recess coordinators around the district.

Now in Costa Rica, at the international school where I serve as General Director, we have similarly adopted structured recess.  In our case, it was a suggestion that did not come from me, but as a result for the need to have a better strategy for maintaining social distancing during recess and lunch time.  In the US, many states have relaxed social distancing requirements when students are outside.  In Costa Rica the health protocols require social distancing at all times.  After the first week of school, simply trying to train and supervise students to independently maintain their distance just wasn’t working well enough.  So we hired coaches to design structured recess activities that incorporated the social distancing requirements.  It has worked wonderfully.  While I still am eager to protect spaces for genuine student-led play, my observational data suggests that kids are enjoying the structured recess activities as much or more than they were traditional recess time.