It seems that we cannot go a week without a new report about rowdy youths causing chaos in Britain’s classrooms. With misbehaving kids becoming apparently uncontrollable and teachers resorting to buying armguards to protect themselves, it would appear that the situation in many schools in the country has spiralled out of control. The Government’s school behaviour expert, Sir Alan Steer believes that the best way to control children and stop this happening is to play bingo and other games at the beginning of lessons.
Sir Alan argued that the root of problems in the classroom results from boredom “Often behavioural problems arise from children not learning and being bored” and the best way to prevent this is to stimulate children’s minds from the outset.
Sir Alan’s ideas came in the form of a 200 page report and included using bingo as a tool to get children motivated in the classroom. He used the example of using a game of bingo in French lessons to improve the vocabulary of students, where words or sentences replace the standard numbers seen on a bingo card. Other ideas to keep students interested included setting up games which replicate popular TV programmes such as ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ where children would be able to ‘phone a friend’ within the classroom to help them out.
Using bingo as a classroom aid is not a new idea. Bingo has been used in countries across the world to assist learning and one of the original uses for the game was as an educational tool for German school children. Schools across the country where behaviour levels are becoming cause for concern will see bingo and other games implemented in the classroom in a bid to improve the situation.
The introduction of games such as bingo at the beginning of lessons have proven to be effective methods of settling students down and alleviating boredom which can often initiate rowdiness in the classroom. Brian Lightman, part of the Association of School and College Leaders recognised that games played within the first ten minutes of a lesson can encourage focus and helps to stimulate learning for the rest of the lesson.
Despite the findings by Sir Alan that there are a significant number of schools where behaviour levels are cause for concern, he noted that the majority of schools had good discipline levels and pupils were well behaved. For those children who need a little encouragement, bingo might just be the answer.
