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Have you had a lesson that begins well, with students focused and learning steadily, only for attention to dip gradually? Some children become restless, and others just disengage.
Sometimes, it isn't about student motivation. It's about capacity. Sustained attention takes effort for young minds, and the brain naturally cycles in and out of focus. Without breaks, cognitive fatigue builds, and learning becomes harder to maintain.
Brain breaks support this by restoring attention rhythm rather than interrupting it. Movement increases blood flow to the brain, which supports focus and memory. Even brief pauses reduce fatigue and improve re-engagement.
Play brings these systems together in practice.
It gives students structured opportunities to move, regulate, and adapt, helping settle them into a more active and receptive state.
This week is about how you can use them together to support better behaviour and more effective learning in the classroom. Let's begin!
The Power of Brain Breaks: 10 Simple Activities That Transform Your Classroom
The brain simply needs recovery points to stay engaged and regulated across the day.
This upcoming free webinar focuses on practical, ready-to-use brain breaks that help reset attention, support regulation, and bring students back into learning with more focus and energy.
Instead of pushing through fatigue, you’ll learn how to build small recovery moments that protect learning time and improve classroom flow.
In this session, you’ll see how brain breaks can be used intentionally throughout the day, not as interruptions, but as tools that improve focus, behaviour, and well-being. You’ll also walk away with a clear understanding of how they connect directly to regulation and sustained learning.
WHEN: May 11, 2026, at 7:00 pm Australian time, so it's easier to join live after the school day.
Once you register, you’ll receive 10 brain break activities instantly for immediate use in your classroom. Secure your spot HERE!
A Real-Time View of Student Well-being
When you look at well-being in most schools, the challenge isn’t intention. It’s visibility.
The Better Us Project provides schools with real-time visibility into student well-being across five key dimensions—mood, energy, confidence, belonging, and worry. Every student. Every day. Automatically.
The platform generates a live Culture Score that combines engagement, well-being, streaks, and kind acts into a single, easy-to-read metric.
This matters because it connects directly to what we know about learning. When students are disconnected, attention drops and behaviour becomes harder to guide. But when they are regulated and feel a sense of belonging, learning improves naturally.
The same principles apply at a systems level. Small, consistent moments of check-in and reflection create the conditions in which students are more available to learn, not just academically but also socially and emotionally.
As one way to frame it: “Principals don’t want ‘students are happy.’ They want: ‘Year 8 belonging increased 18% over two terms.’ That’s what this delivers.
If you want to see how this works in your school context, you can Book a Discovery Call with the team and walk through it in real time.
Jump Spin Shot
When students have been sitting for long periods or working through heavy cognitive load, attention narrows.
Jump Spin Shot is one of our Top Rated games and is a fast-paced brain break that brings energy back into the room while gently re-engaging thinking skills without pressure.
How to play:
Students pair up and stand back-to-back. On a countdown of three, they jump, spin 180 degrees, and land facing each other. Once they land, both players immediately show a number of fingers between one and five and call “shot.” The first player to correctly multiply the two numbers wins the round!
It’s quick and competitive, combining movement, reaction time, and simple problem-solving in one short burst.
The reset allows students to shift from a static focus to movement, then back to thinking, in seconds. Used well, it becomes less about “winning” and more about continuing lessons with better focus and regulation.
Learn more about The School of Play, the world's first global play-based well-being curriculum, where games like this support deep learning and engagement across the school year.
Top Dances to Get Students Active with Mel Levenberg
Students' energy is low? A quick dance is a great place to start!
Top Dances to Get Students Active is full of engaging dance routines you can use in your classroom to get students moving and reconnecting with the moment.
This isn’t about perfect choreography, but using movement to lift energy, support regulation, and build the foundations that learning relies on. At the same time, they’re building confidence and fundamental movement skills that support long-term development.
It also solves a common challenge with many teachers who are struggling with what to run and how to keep it engaging. This session gives you ready-to-use routines that are easy to implement across K–6, with no complex setup.
Access this workshop when you Subscribe to Jugar Life and bring more energy and engagement into your day!
Setting the Tone for Term 2
What a way to wrap up Week 1 of Term 2! We had the opportunity to spend the day at Enchanted Adventure Garden with the team from Somerville Primary School, and it delivered on every level.
The focus was clear: Strengthen well-being. Build a connection. Support staff in a meaningful way.
From the first activity, the team leaned in. There was energy, plenty of laughter, and moments of genuine vulnerability that brought people together. Not forced, not surface-level, but a real connection that builds trust within a team.
Across the session, the conversation kept coming back to the role of play as a practical tool to create engaging classrooms, strengthen relationships, and support how students think and learn.
A great team and a strong start to the term ahead. Somerville PS, thank you for trusting us!
Join us on this global journey of joy and connection! If you want to bring The School of Play to your community, fill out the form here ➡
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