Play Pals and Shed Monitors

In St. Oliver Plunkett's we are blessed with lots of space to play, run and have fun in our school with our large yard, sensory garden, grass playing field as well as our Foundation Stage yard. This means that we enjoy a variety of games, sports and quiet zones in school where we can be outside with our friends.

As part of our school development planning for Sept. 2025, some of our staff and families reported in a survey that they would like to see more variety in the play offered at break/lunch and the pupils themselves (through the school council survey) identified a need to perhaps plan and structure the zones in our yard more efficiently, stock up on new play equipment in our shed and make better use of our Buddy Benches for anyone having a 'not so good a day' as one child put it.

Therefore, we agreed to establish new Play Pals and Shed Monitors as pupil leadership teams to help guide and lead the way. On this page you will see what these teams get up to and how they are working to make the yard an even more fun, enjoyable and friendlier place to be.

Shed Monitors

The Shed Monitor teams share the job of looking after the shed of play equipment at break and lunch time every day. They give out the equipment to the class on rota and make sure that everythimg is packed away in a neat, tidy and organised fashion. They also conduct surveys to ask what other equipment pupils would like and then bring this to the school council to ask for them to find ways to get the equipment bought. The shed monitors also direct and guide pupils in each class to the yard rota making sure everyone has a fair chance to play with the toys in stock.

Their aims are to;

Maintain and provide for creative and safe use of play equipment
Provide fun activities and equipment during break and lunch playtimes; and
Maintain a neat and tidy play shed where the equipment is kept safely stored and available for use at all times.

Play Pals

Having evaluated the feedback from pupil, parental and staff audits into the school's ethos, we were thrilled with the very positive feedback which highlighted the school's ongoing efforts to ensure that all children feel they have a friend to lean on in school. This is in a huge way thanks to the work of our long stablished Play Pals who have a role of keeping an eye out in the yard for anyone who seems to be having a quiet or not so great a day as others. The Play Pals wear brightly coloured hats to make them easily visible to others and all pupils know that they can approach one of our Play Pals if they feel lonely or simply need someone to chat to. Indeed, thanks to the very generous donation of Buddy Benches from our P7 leavers last year (placed in front of Mrs. McCann's office), we have somewhere where pupils can go and the Play Pals will always be on high alert to sit and have a chat with them! The main aims for our play pals are;

To make everyone in our school feels valued and wanted
To ensure everyone has someone to play with leaving nobody left out; and
Let pupils know that there is always a person they can talk to or a place to go if they want someone to chat with.