OPAL Platinum Award:

We are thrilled to announce that after our final OPAL audit, we have been awarded PLATINUM for our play provision. This is the highest OPAL award. We are very proud of the whole play team and OPAL working party, who have worked tirelessly to improve playtimes for the children in our school.

We are committed to ensuring quality play opportunities are available to all our children. We believe that play is essential for physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of each child. The school acknowledges the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child, especially Article 31, and supports the child’s right to play. Most of our best childhood memories are from playing outdoors, risk taking and exploring the wide world around us. OPAL gives us the opportunity to give those memories to your children. OPAL is all about using naturally and man-made resources to allow children to be inspired and creative at playtime.

What is OPAL Play?

Children spend 20% of their time in school playing. To ensure that this time and our fantastic school grounds are used to their full potential our school has adopted an OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) philosophy that allows the children freedom to explore play in their own imaginative ways, often using found and gathered resources in the natural outdoor environment.

An OPAL approach promotes a more inclusive play environment in which all children can feel comfortable to express themselves. Our OPAL journey began in Autumn 2020 and since this time, we have quickly transformed our outdoor environment. Our children love the new outdoor opportunities that OPAL offers with so much more for them to do, no matter the weather! From playing with tyres and digging in the sand pit, to enjoying imaginative play by the pirate ship or cooking up a storm in the mud kitchen, OPAL offers an exciting alternative to the standard playground activities.

Through this approach to play children are not only more active at lunch or break times, but they are also having the opportunity to further develop life skills such as cooperation, team work and problem solving. They are becoming motivated and enthusiastic builders, engineers, explorers and designers.

Our Aims:

• To ensure play settings provide a varied, challenging and stimulating environment.
• To allow children to take risks and use a common-sense approach to these risks and their benefits.
• To provide opportunities for children to develop their relationships with each other.
• To enable children to develop respect for their surroundings and each other.
• To aid children’s physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development.
• To provide a range of environments which will encourage children to explore and play imaginatively.
• To provide a range of environments which will support children’s learning across the curriculum and learning about the world around them.
• To promote independence and team work within children.
• To build emotional and physical resilience.

Risk Benefit:

 ‘Play is great for children’s well-being and development. When planning and providing play opportunities, the goal is not to eliminate risk, but to weigh up the risks and benefits. No child will learn about risk if they are wrapped in cotton wool’ Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation guide is published for Play England 2012.

In the words of the play sector publication Best Play, play provision should aim to ‘manage the balance between the need to offer risk and the need to keep children and Young people safe from harm’.

In additions to standard risk/benefit assessments the school will practice dynamic risk management with children encouraging them to identify and manage risks in an environment where adults are present to support them.

The children will take part in regular OPAL Play Assemblies in which the children will identify potential risks with new equipment and resources being introduced to the outdoor learning environment.

The Value of Play:

Play is defined as any freely chosen activity which a child finds satisfying and creative. It may or may not involve equipment or other people. We believe the learning opportunities of play include:- 

• Emotions e.g. learning about oneself and others, sadness/gladness, rejection/acceptance, frustration/achievement, boredom/fascination, fear/confidence.
• Social interactions - enhancing self-esteem and understanding of others through freely chosen interactions e.g. within peer groups, with individuals, with groups of different ages, abilities, interests, gender, ethnicity and culture.
• Making choices, problem solving, being creative,
• Playing with scrap materials, tyres and other multipurpose objects –
• Achieving and also coping with failing,
• Communication and negotiation skills

OPAL Newsletters:
Our OPAL newsletters provide regular updates on the development of OPAL across the whole school and highlight how high-quality outdoor play supports children’s learning, wellbeing and personal development. They showcase how play promotes collaboration, creativity, resilience and physical activity for pupils of all ages. Sharing these newsletters helps strengthen communication between school and home and supports our commitment to providing enriching, inclusive and purposeful play opportunities for all pupils.

Our latest OPAL newsletters will be published on this page each week. We encourage families to read them regularly and join us in celebrating the positive impact of outdoor play across our school.

OPAL Play Rangers:
We have KS2 children whose job it is to ensure that our playtimes run smoothly and make sure that all children have someone to play with. Please ask any of our play detectives for help if you need anything at playtime. You will see them in a yellow hi-vis.

OPAL Donations:

We are always asking kindly for OPAL Donations. Loose parts are any materials that can be easily moved, combined, and incorporated into children's free play. The items we are looking for will enable us to enjoy a wider range of play experiences during playtime (see below for some examples):

• Suitcases of any size and type
• Anything on wheels/castors
• Plastic milk crates
• Briefcases, especially hard cased ones
• Kitchen pots, pans, baking trays, worktables, wooden spoons, chopping boards
• Tools like spades, trowels and brooms (no forks)
• Tubes of various sizes and various materials
• Buckets and watering cans
• Fabric (large sheets/brightly coloured fabric e.g. old duvet covers)
• Foam sheets / body boards
• Cable drums
• Guttering
• Noodles (the type you use in the swimming pool!)
• Pegs (to help to set up dens)

We value playtime as a vital part of the school day!  We all need rest, breaks and time for ourselves to socialise.  Children more so, need this time to play, interact with their friends and get fresh air and simply have fun!  We are so lucky with our substantial grounds where there is space for all types of play.  We are keen to make sure opportunities for all types of play are accessible for all children.  We have introduced the concept of OPAL play which allows children to develop their imagination, creativity and active play.  For further details on this please check out their website:   https://outdoorplayandlearning.org.uk/  

We are very excited as this concept develops over the coming year.   We have many outdoor areas in our 'Theme Park'-style playgrounds!  

Here at OPA we value our learning and learning environment.  Our Oxley Parkers have created a Play Charter to follow when we are outside playing!

The Maze Zone - run through the pathways, discover new places, create your own world and get excited with all your friends.

Craft Zone - Time to let those creative juices flow!   Create amazing pictures, relax with some mindfulness colouring or make something exciting in origami!

Theatre Zone - FAB-u-lous Darling!   Time to tread the boards, shine like a star - drama, dance or song whatever your talents showcase them in the Theatre Zone!

Beach Zone.  Summer all year round at Oxley!  We may be in the centre of the country but everyone can visit the sandy beach every day!   (coming soon!)

Water Zone.  You can always have fun when water is involved!  Using tubes, hose pipes and buckets; everything you need to have a wet and wild playtime!

Adventure Zone.  It is time to get active!  Swing, climb, balance and jump come and discover the trim trails and adventure zone!

Pit Stop.  Tyres, tyres, tyres!  Roll in them, build them into towers, jump in and out of them, whatever you want, you have so many tyres at the Pit Stop!

Road Zone.  Get on your bike! (or scooter) its time to go riding and have fun with your friends and remembering the green cross code!  Our playground road networks are the safest roads in Britain!

Construction Zone.  Time to build!  Using everything and anything- we have it in the Construction Zone!  Guttering, pipes, milk crates and boxes are just some of the things you can use to get creative and build great creations!

Home Zone.  Time to chill!  It has been a hard day, time to read a book, take some shade or just watch the world go by around you.  You can do this in our Home Zone!

Den Zone.  Who doesn't love building a den?  Well, we have everything you need in the Den Zone!  Time to get going and build the best den ever for you and your friends to hide out in!

Gym Zone.  It's time to get fit!  Get on the stepper, the runner or the cross trainer and have a good gym session each day!   Don't stop going to the gym when you are an adult - the perfect habit to stay active and healthy!

Disco Zone.  Let's party!  Time to get those dancing shoes on and dance your playtime away!  Show those moves to the latest tunes and have the best party ever with your friends.

Green pitch.  The place for ball games!  Play the traditional football game or create your own - if it includes a ball, this is the zone for you!  At our Oxley Park campus we have the artificial green pitch and at our Shenley Wood campus we have the large open natural field.

Red pitch.  A wicked wide open space on our Oxley Park campus.  The best place for a relay race or a sprint on the fab running track.  A game of netball or basketball or a great open space for a game of tag or your own creation!

Wacky Woods.  Outdoor learning at it's best!  The place for Forest Schools, science lessons or even a bit of gardening!  Wacky Woods at our Oxley Park campus is the place to be and discover the natural world!

Merry Meadows.  Just like the Wacky Woods, the Merry Meadows is home to outdoor learning at our Shenley Wood campus.   Go on a mini-beast hunt, sit round the camp fire for songs and stories or visit the bug hotel.  Get back to nature in the Merry Meadows!

Take a sneak peek at OPAL