Welcome to the Playworks MN Junior Coach Program! We are excited to partner with you and student leaders at your school to make recess a more joyful, engaging, and empowering time of day. On this page, you’ll find a number of supporting materials for the Junior Coach Student Leadership Program; many of which can be copied and edited for your school.
Reach out to your Playworks Coach or mninfo@playworks.org with any questions!
Overview and Information About the Program
Use these to share an overview of the program with different stakeholders. The webpage is great for sharing with families.
Overview of the Junior Coach Program (webpage)
Overview for Recess Supervisors (PDF)
Junior Coach Leadership Program (PDF)
1. Recruit Your Junior Coach Team
Start by reviewing the Junior Coach program logistics document and identify someone at your school to lead the program (ideally someone who supervises recess or has the capacity to support Junior Coaches at recess). Next, modify the student application for your school, present the opportunity to each class, collect applications and teacher referrals, select a team of students, announce the team, send congratulations letters to families, collect waivers, and finally, scan and upload waivers using the dropbox link.
DropBox for All Junior Coach Waivers/Emergency Contact Forms
English Recruitment Documents (drive folder)
Spanish Recruitment Documents (drive folder)
Somali Recruitment Documents (drive folder)
Arabic Recruitment Documents (drive folder)
Simplified Chinese Recruitment Documents (drive folder)
Teacher Referral Form (google doc)
Script for Classroom Presentations
2. Launch and Maintain Your Program
In this section you’ll find resources to guide your Junior Coach trainings, sample schedules you can modify, and additional resources for ensuring Junior Coaches stay motivated all school year and feel equipped to make a big difference.
Junior Coach Recess Schedule Template/Sample (google doc)
Junior Coach Desk/Locker Schedule (google slides)
Junior Coach Roster (google sheet)
Simplified Monthly Training Lesson Plan (google slide deck)
Full Junior Coach Curriculum (PDF)
3. Share Helpful Resources with your Recess Team
Whenever possible, involve recess supervisors in conversations about the Junior Coach program, selection of the team, and Junior Coach trainings. These resources will help them be the best recess supervisors they can be while finding ways to partner with the Junior Coaches on the playground.
Great Recess Framework (pdf) – One-page description of the elements of a great recess
Recess Lab (webpage) – lots of great ideas for faciliting a high quality recess
