Lewes New School Blog

Boys and their light sabres… this seems to have been the main issue at school for the past couple of 

weeks…what to do about boys and their light sabres. We obviously don’t want children getting hurt, but we don’t want to go down the route of an outright ban either – substitutes are always found, and anyway we feel it’s vital that boys can act like boys without feeling that they are bad or wrong.  Our first decision, to make a deal with the boys and hand the responsibility for safe play over to them, worked fantastically well for a while, especially with the older ones helping the youngest to stick to the deal. 

This responsibility has become a bit of a burden for the older boys over the last couple of days however, and we have decided to have a break from light sabre play for a while. So at assembly yesterday we acknowledged the successful efforts of a lot of the boys in the playground, and discussed what we had learned from it (like ‘not hurting people when you’re playing fighting games’). We then observed that we had noticed that some people were running out of steam and seemed to be a bit worn out by the effort involved, so maybe now was the time to have a break. There was a feeling of ‘fair enough’ from the children, and an acceptance of a ‘let’s wait and see’ approach to playing again. 

This seems to me to be a great example of the way things are worked out at Lewes New School: the trust in the children; the clear boundaries; and the flexibility to manage situations appropriately as they change.  Added to that of course is the learning we take from the children’s learning, and finding out what they are capable of. If any parents would like to know the deal that worked so well, for use at home or after-school play time, these are the magic words: ‘If you want to play with light sabres, it is your responsibility to make sure that nobody gets hurt. That’s the deal.’  Then add trust!  

Stephanie PET/TET co-ordinator