À la récréation, les enfants courent dans la cour de l’école.

Here à la récréation is a time expression, meaning something like at recess or during recess.

So à does not always mean only to or at a place. In expressions of time, it can help set the moment when something happens.

Putting À la récréation at the beginning is very natural in French because it sets the scene first:

• À la récréation, ... = At recess, ...

In a school context, la récréation means recess, break time, or playtime.

So here it is not the general English idea of recreation in the broad sense. It specifically refers to the school break when children go out and play.

Les enfants means the children.

French often uses the definite article more readily than English. In this sentence, les enfants can refer to:

• the children in that school situation, or
• children as a group in that context

If you said des enfants, it would usually mean some children, which is less natural here unless you specifically want to emphasize that only some children are running.

Courent is the 3rd person plural form of courir (to run), used with les enfants.

• il court = he runs
• ils courent = they run

The important point: in French, the -ent ending of many plural verbs is not pronounced.

So courent is pronounced basically like cour:

• courent → sounds like koor (roughly)
• the -ent is silent

This is very common in French verb spelling.

It can mean either, depending on context.

The French present tense often covers both:

• they run
• they are running

In this sentence, because of À la récréation, it may sound like a habitual action:

• At recess, the children run in the schoolyard

But in the right context, it could also describe what is happening now:

• At recess, the children are running in the schoolyard

French does not require a separate progressive form like English does.

Here la cour means the schoolyard, playground, or courtyard.

In la cour de l’école, it means the area outside the school where children play.

It is related to the idea of a courtyard, not a tennis court or a court of law. The exact English translation depends on context, but in this sentence schoolyard or playground is the best fit.

Dans means in or inside.

French uses dans la cour because the children are running in the schoolyard, that is, within that space.

So:

• dans la cour = in the yard / in the playground

This is more natural than trying to translate word-for-word from English expressions like out in the playground.

Because école is a feminine noun that begins with a vowel sound.

Normally you would have:

• de la
  • feminine noun

But before a vowel sound, French uses de l’ instead:

• de l’école

And du is only used for:

• de + le = du

Since école is feminine (la école would be the full form in theory), du école is impossible.

This is called elision.

French avoids saying la école, because that sounds awkward before a vowel. So la becomes l’:

• la école → l’école

The same thing happens in many common phrases:

• l’enfant
• l’ami
• l’histoire

So de l’école comes from de + l’école.

Yes. You could also say:

Les enfants courent dans la cour de l’école à la récréation.

That is grammatically possible. But starting with À la récréation is often more natural if you want to introduce the time first.

French often places time expressions at the beginning for emphasis or scene-setting. The comma after À la récréation helps mark that introductory phrase.

In correct modern French, capital letters keep their accents:

• À
• É
• Ç, etc.

So À is the proper spelling here.

This also helps avoid confusion:

• à = at / to
• a = has

Even on a capital letter, the accent still matters.

They are different words:

• courent comes from the verb courir = to run
• cour is a noun meaning yard / courtyard / schoolyard

They happen to sound the same here, which can be confusing for learners:

• courent → pronounced like cour
• cour → pronounced the same way

So in this sentence, French gives you two different words that are pronounced alike:

• les enfants courent dans la cour...

That is perfectly normal in French, where spelling often preserves grammatical information that pronunciation does not.