The School of Play Curriculum
Secondary School
Week Eight strengthens students’ strategic thinking, physical fitness, and gratitude practice through a dynamic blend of movement, problem-solving, and reflection. Students take part in fast-paced games that require them to think ahead, plan their moves, and stay focused under pressure. Through activities like 21 Reasons to Smile, Dice Cricket, and Tic Tac Toe Ten, they refine their ability to strategise while staying physically active, building endurance, coordination, and confidence in a fun, competitive environment.
Alongside the action, students deepen their emotional awareness and appreciation for the positive aspects of their lives. The Get Detecting activity encourages them to explore how Play, Exercise, Gratitude, and Giving show up across different environments, building self-awareness and nurturing a balanced mindset. Together, this week’s activities help students understand the importance of thinking ahead, staying active, and practising gratitude, supporting not only their physical and cognitive growth but also their emotional well-being and daily resilience.
Weekly Lessons
21 Reasons to Smile
21 Reasons to Smile is a high-energy movement game that blends strategy, fitness, and fun as students work in pairs to avoid being the player who says “21.” Players perform one, two, or three squats on their turn while continuing the count upward, using quick thinking and clever planning to control the pace of the game. The challenge lies in choosing squat numbers wisely to force your partner into the losing position. While the strategy unfolds, the continuous movement keeps everyone active, energised, and laughing, creating an engaging experience suitable for any group size.
The game promotes physical fitness, positive social interaction, and light-hearted competition while strengthening students’ strategic thinking skills. Each round encourages new partnerships, quick decision-making, and plenty of joyful moments as players cheer, encourage, and outwit one another. With easy setup, no equipment needed, and flexible variations for different ages and abilities, 21 Reasons to Smile is the perfect warm-up, energiser, or end-of-session activity. It boosts mood, builds connection, and leaves everyone, quite literally, with 21 reasons to smile.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
21 Reasons to Smile supports students to:
- Engage equally, as every player takes turns, performs the same movements, and has the same strategic opportunities.
- Build an inclusive environment, where the game relies on thinking, participation, and fun rather than physical superiority.
- Provide equal access to success, with simple rules that ensure all students, regardless of fitness, confidence, or background, can participate meaningfully.
Building Healthy Relationships
21 Reasons to Smile helps students to:
- Strengthen social bonds, as pairs rotate frequently, allowing students to interact with many peers in a fun, low-pressure environment.
- Foster trust and rapport, with gameplay encouraging laughter, shared challenge, and mutual encouragement.
- Promote respectful interaction, because each round resets and partners continually shift, helping students treat all classmates fairly and positively.
Developing Communication Skills
21 Reasons to Smile encourages students to:
- Communicate clearly, especially when counting aloud, clarifying turn order, and discussing strategies during or after rounds.
- Practise active listening, tuning into their partner’s count and responding correctly to continue the game smoothly.
- Use positive social language, such as encouraging peers, congratulating others, and maintaining friendly sportsmanship.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
21 Reasons to Smile supports students to:
- Build emotional awareness, recognising how they respond to pressure, strategy, success, and mistakes.
- Develop resilience, embracing the humour in losing a round and re-engaging with new partners enthusiastically.
- Strengthen problem-solving skills, by practising strategic thinking and mental planning in real time.
- Increase positive emotions, with the game’s laughter, movement, and shared enjoyment boosting overall mood and connection.
Challenging Stereotypes
21 Reasons to Smile helps students to:
- Challenge stereotypes about fitness and competition, showing that movement-based games can be inclusive, social, and mentally stimulating.
- Break assumptions about who is “good at strategy,” reinforcing that everyone can contribute to strategic thinking regardless of academic performance or confidence.
- Promote a culture where fun and physical activity are for all students, regardless of gender or physical ability.
Recognising Rights
21 Reasons to Smile empowers students to:
- Experience their right to participate safely and fully, with accessible, adaptable physical movements.
- Feel safe making mistakes, as losing a round simply adds to the fun and does not impact their sense of belonging.
- Be treated with respect and fairness, especially through partner rotation that encourages equitable interactions across the group.
- Recognise their right to wellbeing, using movement, humour, and connection to support emotional and social health.
Get Detecting
Get Detecting is a reflective well-being activity that guides students to explore four key environments in their lives, Home, School, Friendship Group, and a Free-Choice environment, and identify how Play, Exercise, Gratitude, and Giving (The Daily PEGG) show up in each space. Using a structured worksheet, students examine the habits, moments, and interactions that influence their mental and physical health, building awareness of the positive elements that already support their well-being. This gentle, meaningful activity helps students recognise the role their environments play in shaping happiness, connection, movement, and kindness.
The activity also encourages students to think proactively about how they can strengthen the presence of PEGG in each environment moving forward. After completing their reflections, students can share insights with peers, sparking conversations about well-being practices across different settings. Whether used in a classroom, leadership session, or well-being workshop, Get Detecting empowers students to understand themselves, appreciate their support networks, and take intentional steps to boost playfulness, gratitude, movement, and giving in everyday life.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
Get Detecting supports students to:
- Recognise that all environments contribute differently to well-being, reinforcing that no single space (home, school, friendships, hobbies) is “better” or more important than another.
- Promote equal value of diverse experiences, as every student’s environments, and how they experience Play, Exercise, Gratitude, and Giving, are acknowledged and respected.
- Encourage inclusive thinking, helping students understand that well-being looks different for everyone and that all individuals deserve supportive, positive environments.
Building Healthy Relationships
Get Detecting helps students to:
- Deepen relationships with peers, through optional sharing that builds understanding of one another’s lives, environments, and values.
- Strengthen connections within their existing environments, as students identify how Play, Exercise, Gratitude, and Giving appear in their home, school, and friendship groups.
- Promote empathy and appreciation, as students reflect on the supportive actions of others and recognise how their own behaviours impact people around them.
Developing Communication Skills
Get Detecting encourages students to:
- Express their reflections clearly, articulating where they observe the four PEGG elements within their environments.
- Practise meaningful sharing, participating in group discussions about well-being, environmental influence, and personal experience.
- Strengthen active listening, especially during optional group sharing, as they hear peers’ reflections and appreciate diverse perspectives.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
Get Detecting supports students to:
- Develop self-awareness, identifying how different environments affect their happiness, well-being, and sense of belonging.
- Build emotional intelligence, by reflecting on gratitude, giving, joy, and movement, four emotional drivers that shape daily experiences.
- Enhance critical thinking, analysing how their environments do or do not support their mental and physical health.
- Recognise opportunities for growth, identifying ways to increase positive well-being habits in each area of their life.
Challenging Stereotypes
Get Detecting helps students to:
- Challenge assumptions about well-being, recognising that happiness and health are influenced by multiple environments, not just home or school.
- Break stereotypes about what “counts” as Play, Exercise, Gratitude, or Giving, validating unconventional or personal expressions of each element.
- Promote diversity in well-being practices, demonstrating that everyone’s environments are unique and every student has different supports and challenges.
Recognising Rights
Get Detecting empowers students to:
- Recognise their right to a safe and supportive environment, in all major areas of their life, not only at school.
- Understand their right to well-being by identifying what helps them thrive mentally, emotionally, socially, and physically.
- Feel ownership over personal growth, as they evaluate their surroundings and identify ways to enhance their Daily PEGG.
- Acknowledge their community role, recognising how they contribute to the well-being of others through giving, gratitude, and positive engagement.
Dice Cricket
Dice Cricket is a high-energy, cricket-themed dice game that blends numeracy, strategy, and physical activity into one engaging experience. Played in pairs, students take turns ‘batting’ by rolling a six-sided dice, adding runs to their score for rolls of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6. Each roll comes with a matching exercise, keeping students active and building fitness as they play. A roll of 5 means the batter is ‘out’, encouraging players to plan their strategy, think about probability, and decide how to maximise their runs before losing their wicket. With ten batters per player, the game keeps the pace high and the excitement real.
The game also promotes teamwork and communication, as partners encourage each other, track scores together, and celebrate big rolls and high totals. Students strengthen their numeracy skills through continuous adding and scorekeeping, while the fitness component keeps the session lively and energised. Highly adaptable for different ages, fitness levels, or learning focuses, Dice Cricket brings together chance, movement, strategy, and social connection, making it a perfect warm-up, maths-linked activity, or active brain break in any learning environment.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
Dice Cricket supports students to:
- Recognise the equal value of all roles in a team, as both batting and scoring contribute to success, reinforcing the idea that everyone brings unique strengths.
- Promote fairness and shared opportunity, since all players take equal turns and have the same chance to score or face challenges.
- Encourage inclusion, as the game is adaptable for all fitness levels and abilities, ensuring all students can participate meaningfully.
Building Healthy Relationships
Through Dice Cricket, students:
- Develop supportive partnerships, encouraging their teammate, celebrating efforts, and navigating challenges together.
- Strengthen communication skills, discussing strategy, sharing feedback, and coordinating exercise components.
- Foster positive social interactions, reinforcing the value of cooperation, encouragement, and celebrating others’ successes.
Developing Communication Skills
Dice Cricket helps students improve communication by:
- Practising clear verbal dialogue when planning strategies or keeping track of scores.
- Supporting one another with positive language, reinforcing respectful interactions in a competitive environment.
- Engaging in active listening, responding to their partner’s ideas and working together toward shared goals.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
The game builds students’ emotional capacity by:
- Managing emotions in uncertain outcomes, such as being “out” or rolling low numbers, helping them practise resilience.
- Strengthening self-awareness, noticing how competition, teamwork, and movement affect their mood and engagement.
- Building empathy, as students consider how their encouragement, support, and communication impact their partner’s experience.
- Developing problem-solving and strategic thinking, integrating numeracy skills and probability concepts into gameplay.
Challenging Stereotypes
Dice Cricket promotes stereotype awareness and inclusivity by:
- Breaking down gendered assumptions about sport, making cricket-based activities accessible and enjoyable for all students.
- Challenging stereotypes about fitness, showing that physical activity can be playful, team-based, and inclusive, rather than competitive or performance-focused.
- Demonstrating that numeracy and strategy are for everyone, encouraging all students to lean into maths and problem-solving without fear of judgement.
Recognising Rights
Dice Cricket encourages students to understand their rights by:
- Highlighting everyone’s right to participate, collaborate, and feel included, regardless of fitness level or skill.
- Practising respect and fairness, reinforcing that every student has the right to be treated kindly and supported in group settings.
- Understanding their responsibility to contribute positively, as their actions, encouragement, teamwork, and respect shape the collective experience.
- Promoting wellbeing as a shared right, linking movement, connection, and teamwork to mental and physical health.
Tic Tac Toe Ten
Tic Tac Toe Ten is a fast-paced mathematical strategy game that blends numeracy, problem-solving, and play. Players take turns rolling a six-sided dice and placing the number anywhere on a 3×3 tic-tac-toe grid, racing to be the first to create a row, column, or diagonal of three numbers that add up to ten. Every placement becomes an exciting blend of prediction, logic, and probability, students must think ahead, block their opponent, and make clever use of each roll. If a move causes the sum to go under or over ten, the opponent wins the round and earns a point, keeping every dice roll high-stakes and engaging. The game is played for ten minutes, encouraging fast decision-making and mental agility.
What sets Tic Tac Toe Ten apart is its playful combination of movement and positive reflection. After each round, the winner rolls the dice to answer a gratitude-based reflection question, encouraging mindfulness and emotional awareness, while the player who didn’t win completes a simple bodyweight exercise linked to their roll. This creates a perfect balance of cognitive challenge, physical activity, and social-emotional learning. The game nurtures strategic thinking, enhances maths skills, boosts fitness, and builds a strong culture of gratitude, all in one fun, repeatable activity that students absolutely love.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
Tic Tac Toe Ten promotes equality by:
- Ensuring all players have equal turns, reinforcing fairness, balance, and shared ownership of the game.
- Allowing every student to succeed through strategy, numeracy, movement, or reflection, meaning no single type of skill dominates the activity.
- Creating an inclusive environment, as the game can be adapted for different abilities through modified physical exercises or alternative reflection options.
Building Healthy Relationships
Through gameplay and reflection, students:
- Develop supportive peer interactions, congratulating each other, encouraging effort, and celebrating both strategic wins and acts of gratitude.
- Strengthen relational skills, as the game transitions from competition to positive self-reflection and appreciation of others.
- Reinforce gratitude as a relationship-builder, learning how expressing appreciation strengthens connections and emotional safety.
Developing Communication Skills
Tic Tac Toe Ten supports communication development by encouraging students to:
- Share their reflections in a safe, structured format after each round, practising expressing gratitude and personal insights.
- Use positive and respectful dialogue, especially when commenting on strategy, offering encouragement, or navigating competitive moments.
- Build confidence in verbal expression, particularly around expressing emotions, goals, and personal growth.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
The game deepens emotional and social skills through:
- Gratitude practice, which is linked to increased happiness, empathy, and emotional regulation.
- Self-awareness, as students reflect on their strengths, aspirations, challenges, and personal growth.
- Resilience, by balancing winning and losing, performing physical exercises, and managing emotions during gameplay.
- Perspective-taking, as students hear reflections from peers and build understanding of diverse life experiences.
Challenging Stereotypes
Tic Tac Toe Ten addresses stereotype awareness by:
- Integrating maths, movement, and emotional reflection equally, challenging narrow ideas about what students “should” be good at based on gender or background.
- Showing that vulnerability (sharing gratitude) and strategic thinking can coexist, countering stereotypes that emotional expression is a “weakness” or only suited to some students.
- Demonstrating that physical movement can be inclusive, with exercises adapted to ability rather than reinforcing performance-based stereotypes.
Recognising Rights
This activity strengthens students’ understanding of rights by:
- Promoting the right to feel safe and emotionally supported, particularly during reflective questions.
- Reinforcing the right to practise self-care, highlighted through gratitude and positive self-reflection prompts.
- Encouraging fair play, respect, and shared responsibility, foundational elements of creating safe learning environments.
- Highlighting everyone’s right to contribute, as every student rolls, places numbers, reflects, and engages physically in their own way.
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