An innovative training scheme is making the most of school lunchtimes both for children and the assistants who supervise them. Caroline Swinburne reports
Michael Dermott, who first came to Knowsley Central Primary Support Centre as a five-year-old back in 1995, speaks as a veteran. 'When I started here lunchtimes were really boring. Everyone just used to run around, and there was lots of fighting and bullying. And there was nothing in the playground - no games or toys or anything.'
Now lunchtimes at this Merseyside primary school have been transformed through a training programme for the lunchtime assistants. As elsewhere, many of the assistants are mothers or grandmothers keen to earn some extra money but who have found the intricate politics of the playground quite a challenge.
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