The School of Play Curriculum
Secondary School
Week Eleven blends physical movement, mental agility, and life-skills reflection to create a powerful, well-rounded learning experience. Through high-energy games like Jump Spin Shot and Ten of a Kind, students strengthen coordination, quick decision-making, and teamwork while also practising rapid mental maths under pressure. The physical elements keep the session lively and engaging, helping students build stamina, focus, and confidence as they interact with partners and groups. These games also promote healthy competition and sportsmanship, encouraging students to communicate clearly, solve problems together, and support one another.
The week also places strong emphasis on empathy, kindness, and the impact of our words and actions. Activities such as The Ultimate Life Skills Game and The Toothpaste or Paper Scrunch Challenge guide students to reflect deeply on real-life scenarios, encouraging them to practise critical life skills such as gratitude, confidence, conflict resolution, and compassion. By discussing thoughtful responses, sharing personal experiences, and recognising the emotional impact of behaviour, students develop stronger self-awareness and social understanding. Together, these activities help students build resilience, strengthen relationships, and grow into more mindful and empathetic young people, equipping them with skills they will carry well beyond the classroom.
Weekly Lessons
Jump Spin Shot
Jump Spin Shot is an energetic, fast-paced warm-up game that fuses physical movement with quick mental maths, making it perfect for activating both body and mind. Partners start back-to-back, then jump, spin, and reveal a number of fingers, all within a split second, before racing to calculate the product of the two numbers. The blend of jumping, spinning, quick reactions, and mental agility creates an exciting challenge that sharpens focus, builds coordination, and gets participants laughing and moving right from the start.
The competitive yet friendly nature of the game encourages teamwork, communication, and positive social interaction, whether students are earning points, completing fitness challenges, or simply enjoying the thrill of rapid-fire rounds. Jump Spin Shot is highly versatile and can be adapted for children, fitness groups, or team-building sessions, making it a powerful tool for energising a session, boosting mental sharpness, and fostering a fun, lively atmosphere.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
Jump Spin Shot supports equality by:
- Providing equal roles and equal decision-making both players jump, spin, reveal fingers, and calculate at the same time.
- Ensuring no physical advantage is required, as success relies on mental agility rather than strength, size, or athleticism.
- Reinforcing fairness, as each round resets with equal opportunity for both players to win a point.
- Normalising shared responsibility, with neither partner dominating the gameplay or outcome.
Building Healthy Relationships
This activity promotes healthy relationship skills through:
- Shared laughter and play, strengthening bonds and reducing social barriers.
- Supportive interaction, as players often encourage each other through repeated fast-paced rounds.
- Mutual respect, demonstrated through fair play and positive acknowledgment of correct answers.
- Connection through movement, where synchronised actions (jump, spin, reveal) create moments of shared experience and cooperation.
Developing Communication Skills
Communication skills are strengthened because students:
- Practise quick, clear verbal responses, calling out answers loudly and confidently.
- Use nonverbal communication cues, including timing, eye contact after the spin, and coordinated movement.
- Engage in respectful competition, maintaining positive tone and friendly banter.
- Adapt communication styles, especially in variations requiring teamwork to answer collaboratively.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
The game builds emotional intelligence by:
- Boosting self-regulation, as students manage excitement, pressure, and quick decision-making.
- Strengthening resilience, bouncing back from incorrect answers or close rounds.
- Increasing self-confidence, as students experience success through both movement and mental agility.
- Encouraging empathy, particularly when peers struggle or need encouragement in the fitness or teamwork variations.
Challenging Stereotypes
Jump Spin Shot challenges common stereotypes by:
- Equally valuing both physical movement and mathematical thinking, showing that these skills are not gender-specific.
- Normalising enthusiasm and playful competitive energy for all students, breaking down stereotypes about who should be loud, excited, or energetic in group settings.
- Highlighting that quick thinking and maths ability is diverse, countering assumptions about who is “good at maths.”
- Removing hierarchy, as winning requires a balance of agility and mental sharpness, not strength or dominance.
Recognising Rights
This game reinforces student rights by:
- Promoting the right to participate safely, with controlled movement and clear expectations.
- Honouring students’ right to fair play, where rules apply equally and consistently.
- Supporting the right to express themselves, both verbally (answering quickly) and physically (movement-based play).
- Encouraging a safe emotional environment, where mistakes are part of the fun and students feel secure trying again.
The Ultimate Life Skills Game
The Ultimate Life Skills Game is a powerful blend of fun, reflection, and personal growth, designed to help students recognise, practise, and strengthen the core life skills they need both inside and outside the classroom. Through a creative mix of cards, dice, and scenario-based challenges, students explore important qualities such as confidence, vulnerability, empathy, resilience, adaptability, kindness, gratitude, and conflict resolution. Each turn invites players to step into real-life moments, respond thoughtfully to meaningful scenarios, and earn Achievement Tokens for demonstrating insight, compassion, and self-awareness.
This game fosters a supportive, collaborative environment where students listen, share, and encourage one another while navigating life-skill challenges together. Whether used as a classroom tool, leadership activity, or reflection exercise, The Ultimate Life Skills Game helps students develop emotional intelligence, communication skills, and critical thinking in a playful, non-judgmental way. The experience ends with a group reflection, allowing students to consolidate their learning and recognise how these life skills can positively shape their relationships, decision-making, and everyday well-being.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
The Ultimate Life Skills Game reinforces equality by:
- Ensuring every player has an equal voice, with all students responding to the same style of scenarios regardless of age, confidence level, or background.
- Providing equal opportunities to earn Achievement Tokens, removing performance-based bias and focusing instead on personal insight and growth.
- Valuing diverse perspectives, showing students that everyone’s lived experiences and emotional responses are valid and important.
- Normalising imperfections, teaching that mistakes, vulnerability, and uncertainty are universal and not weaknesses.
Building Healthy Relationships
This game strengthens healthy relationship skills because students:
- Practise empathy, gratitude, kindness, and conflict resolution through realistic school-based scenarios.
- Build connection through storytelling, as players share real experiences, challenges, and personal strategies.
- Develop trust, as answering vulnerable questions invites authenticity and emotional safety within the group.
- Learn helpful interpersonal strengths, such as supporting peers, listening actively, and validating others' feelings.
Developing Communication Skills
Communication development is at the centre of the game:
- Students practise clear self-expression, articulating thoughts, feelings, and strategies in response to scenarios.
- Active listening is consistently reinforced, as the group evaluates responses respectfully.
- Constructive feedback builds collaborative communication, improving students’ ability to encourage and support others.
- Students explore multiple communication styles, such as expressing gratitude, sharing vulnerability, navigating conflict, or advocating for their needs.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
The game explicitly develops emotional intelligence by helping students:
- Identify emotions connected with confidence, vulnerability, disappointment, conflict, and resilience.
- Self-regulate during challenging or reflective questions, practising calmness and self-awareness.
- Recognise the feelings of others, especially in empathy, kindness, and gratitude-based scenarios.
- Build resilience, learning that setbacks, change, and uncertainty are common life challenges that can be navigated with awareness and adaptability.
Challenging Stereotypes
The Ultimate Life Skills Game helps students recognise and challenge stereotypes by:
- Presenting life skills as universal, countering myths that some strengths (e.g., confidence, vulnerability, teamwork) belong to certain genders or personalities.
- Normalising emotional expression, challenging the stereotype that showing feelings or asking for help is a weakness.
- Highlighting diverse strengths, ensuring students see that leadership, creativity, compassion, and adaptability can appear in many forms.
- Promoting inclusion, showing that everyone, regardless of background or identity, can contribute valuable insights and perspectives.
Recognising Rights
Students practise recognising their own rights and the rights of others through:
- Exploring scenarios about emotional safety, boundaries, and respectful communication, grounding their understanding of personal rights.
- Learning the right to seek support, especially in vulnerability and resilience scenarios.
- Understanding the responsibility to contribute positively to the community, through kindness, empathy, gratitude, and conflict resolution.
- Recognising that every student has the right to be heard, respected, and included during gameplay and discussion.
Ten of a Kind
Ten of a Kind is a fast, fun, and high-energy dice game that blends physical movement with strategy and perseverance. Players or teams roll ten dice at a time, setting aside any matching numbers and completing exercises after each roll. With every round, the challenge grows as players work to match all ten dice to the same number, creating a thrilling mix of luck, fitness, and focus. Whether played individually or as part of a team, the game keeps everyone moving, thinking, and laughing as they try to reach their goal first.
This engaging activity encourages teamwork, communication, and positive sportsmanship while promoting physical fitness through movement-based challenges. The dice's unpredictability makes every round exciting, pushing players to persevere, strategise, and stay locked in on the shared target number. Easily adaptable for different age groups, fitness levels, and settings, Ten of a Kind is a versatile, enjoyable game that builds connection, resilience, and energy in any classroom, gym, or team environment.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
Ten of a Kind reinforces equality by:
- Ensuring every participant has an equal chance to succeed, as progress relies on effort, teamwork, and shared movement rather than physical ability alone.
- Providing opportunities for all team members to contribute equally, regardless of athletic skill or confidence level.
- Valuing different strengths, such as strategy, encouragement, perseverance, or quick thinking.
- Creating a level playing field: chance-based gameplay means all students can win, reducing competitiveness based on ability and promoting fairness.
Building Healthy Relationships
This game actively supports healthy relationship skills:
- Students rely on verbal and non-verbal encouragement, strengthening their ability to uplift peers.
- Team strategy discussions help students practise listening, clarifying ideas, and working cooperatively toward a shared goal.
- The required physical challenge adds laughter and playfulness, which helps deepen relational trust.
- Students experience success and setbacks together, building resilience and shared responsibility.
Developing Communication Skills
Communication is naturally embedded throughout the activity:
- Students share strategies, such as which number to target or how to divide exercise tasks.
- They practise clear, concise communication to maintain momentum in a fast-paced environment.
- Encouragement, positive reinforcement, and shared celebration model supportive communication behaviours.
- Students learn to negotiate decisions respectfully, especially when choosing tactics or adapting gameplay.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
Ten of a Kind builds emotional intelligence by helping students:
- Manage emotions during unpredictable rolls, practising self-regulation and maintaining a positive mindset.
- Persist through setbacks, learning to keep trying even when luck isn’t on their side.
- Show empathy by recognising when teammates need encouragement or support.
- Build confidence as they contribute to team progress through movement, focus, and strategy.
Challenging Stereotypes
The game dismantles stereotypical thinking by:
- Demonstrating that fitness-based activities are for everyone, not limited by gender, personality, or skill level.
- Valuing qualities like patience, communication, and perseverance, traits not tied to any stereotype.
- Showing that leadership can shift each round based on strengths, helping students question rigid assumptions about who should “take charge.”
- Encouraging all students to participate equally in physical challenges, breaking down limiting beliefs about capability.
Recognising Rights
Students explore personal and interpersonal rights through:
- Practising the right to participate safely, with clear boundaries around movement and teamwork.
- Learning that everyone has the right to be supported and encouraged during shared tasks.
- Exercising their responsibility to include peers fairly, uphold safe play, and contribute to the group's success.
- Recognising that healthy competition can coexist with respect, kindness, and sportsmanship.
Paper or Toothpaste Challenge
The Paper or Toothpaste Challenge is a powerful, hands-on activity that teaches students about the lasting impact of their words and actions. Through two simple but memorable tasks, attempting to put toothpaste back into a tube, or trying to smooth out a scrunched-up piece of paper, participants experience a clear visual metaphor: once something is said or done, it cannot be fully undone. This tangible demonstration helps students understand the importance of speaking with kindness, acting thoughtfully, and considering the consequences of their behaviour before making choices.
Both versions of the activity spark meaningful reflection and discussion, encouraging students to recognise how their words affect others and how empathy and kindness strengthen relationships. Whether used in a classroom, workplace, or family setting, the challenge helps build emotional intelligence by promoting mindful communication and responsible decision-making. Simple, impactful, and deeply relatable, the Paper or Toothpaste Challenge offers a memorable lesson that stays with participants long after the activity ends.
Respectful Relationships
Understanding & Promoting Equality
The Paper or Toothpaste Challenge promotes equality by:
- Reinforcing that everyone’s words and actions carry equal weight, regardless of personality, confidence level, or social status.
- Emphasising that each participant has the same responsibility to treat others with kindness and respect.
- Demonstrating through shared experience that negative behaviours impact everyone, and therefore, all individuals must consider how they communicate.
- Encouraging a class culture where all voices and feelings are valued, promoting safety and fairness.
Building Healthy Relationships
This activity deeply supports the development of healthy relationships by:
- Highlighting the role of thoughtfulness, kindness, and accountability in maintaining respectful interactions.
- Helping students understand that repairing harm in relationships takes honesty, empathy, and effort.
- Encouraging open conversation about mistakes, forgiveness, and emotional boundaries.
- Providing a shared experience that strengthens understanding and compassion among peers.
Developing Communication Skills
Students strengthen communication skills through:
- Reflective discussions that require them to articulate their feelings, insights, and personal experiences.
- Gaining awareness of how tone, choice of words, and timing affect others.
- Practising more mindful communication, thinking before speaking, and choosing words that uplift rather than harm.
- Learning how to express regret or repair relationships when mistakes occur.
Enhancing Social & Emotional Intelligence
The challenge is a powerful tool for building emotional intelligence:
- Students learn that actions and words cannot always be undone, building emotional awareness and self-regulation.
- They develop empathy by reflecting on how harmful comments or actions can leave long-lasting “creases,” just like the paper.
- They recognise their ability to influence the emotional climate of their classroom, family, or friendship group.
- Reflection prompts encourage students to take responsibility for their behaviour and to choose kindness intentionally.
Challenging Stereotypes
The activity dismantles common stereotypes by:
- Showing that everyone, regardless of age, gender, or personality, can be impacted by unkind words.
- Reinforcing that kindness is a universal strength, not tied to certain groups or individuals.
- Challenging the idea that apologising or showing vulnerability is a weakness, students see it as a sign of courage and growth.
- Encouraging all students to adopt positive communication habits, not just those traditionally described as “kind,” “gentle,” or “sensitive.”
Recognising Rights
The game reinforces personal rights and responsibilities:
- Students learn that every person has the right to feel safe, respected, and valued, free from harmful words or actions.
- They reflect on their responsibility to uphold these rights for others by communicating thoughtfully.
- The activity highlights the right to repair relationships while acknowledging that some damage may remain, reinforcing the importance of prevention.
- Students practise recognising their own boundaries and the boundaries of others in communication.
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