Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL)
About the School
We are about to launch our exciting new project to make our playtimes even better, in conjunction with Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL)
We strongly believe that: “Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behaviour that actively engages the child. Play can be fun or serious. Through play children explore social, material and imaginary worlds and their relationship with them, elaborating all the while a flexible range of responses to the challenges they encounter. By playing, children learn and develop as individuals, and as members of the community.” (Children’s Play Council 2001).
The programme will improve opportunities for physical activity, socialisation, cooperation, coordination, resilience, creativity, imagination and enjoyment through improved play.
What is Opal?
The Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) Primary Programme is the result of over 20 years of testing and development in over 2000 schools and has been used in Spain, Canada, France and New Zealand. The programme has also been adapted and used in schools in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Austria under the Play Friendly Schools project. In 2018, OPAL won first prize in an EU-funded award for the best active school’s programme in Europe and two UK national play work awards. In 2019, OPAL was awarded a quarter of a million pounds by Sport England to bring the programme to many more schools.
OPAL is based on the idea that, as well as learning through good teaching, your children also learn when they play. As 20% of their time in school is playtime, we want to make sure that this amount of time (equivalent to 1.4 years of primary school) is as good as possible.
OPAL won the best active schools’ programme in Europe award and has been cited in two parliamentary reports as delivering outstanding practice. OPAL is working closely with Sport England to promote more active childhoods, which is one of the many reasons we are improving our playtime, as well as to improve opportunities for socialisation, cooperation, coordination, resilience, creativity, imagination and enjoyment for your child.
One reason the school is carrying out this programme is that childhood has changed, and many children no longer get their play needs met out of school.
- Average screen time per day is six hours.
- Average outdoor play time per week is five hours.
- The percentage of UK children who only play outdoors with other children at school is 56%.
There are many proven benefits for schools that carry out the OPAL Primary Programme. They usually include: more enjoyment of school, less teaching time lost to disputes between children, fewer accidents and greatly improved behaviour.
Play is not messing about. It is the process evolution has come up with to enable children to learn all of the things that cannot be taught, while also having so much fun. There are certain things children must have in order to be able to play. These include:
- Having clothes that they can play in.
- Having things to play with.
- Having a certain amount of freedom.
We are really excited about this project and hope that you will support us in our efforts to improve playtime for all children.
Please visit the Opal website, where you will find lots of useful information and several videos about the programme.
www.outdoor play and learning.org.uk
