During recess | The Grammar Exchange

Hello, Vincent:

In sentence (a), where there is a choice, we would probably say, ‘at recess time.’ This would indicate the beginning of the time of recess. We could also say, ‘at recess,’ without ‘time.’

If you use ‘during,’ it would refer to something happening in the middle of the recess period, while the recess is going on.
So during would not work in sentence (a)

However, in sentence (b), ‘during’ is correct, because Peter’s bumping into a girl did not happen just at the beginning of the period, but in the middle of it. We could say during a recess, during the recess, during the recess period, or just during recess. I think in most cases in North America, we would say ‘during recess.’

Sentence (c) is fine. ‘When it is recess’ means ‘at the beginning of recess’ in this sentence. We would also say just “at recess.’

Sentence (d) is all right. Because of the main clause, ‘when it was recess time’ means, in this sentence, ‘during recess time.’ And, we would probably say, instead, ‘During recess, Peter stayed in the classroom.’