OPAL at Greatstone Primary School
We are participating in a project to improve our playtimes for all children at Greatstone Primary School. We signed up to the Opal (Outdoor Play and Learning) programme in order to support us with this.
Did you know that playtime is about 20% of every child’s day at school? That’s 1.4 years of every child’s life while they are at primary school.
Playing outdoors in rich play environments is one of the best ways for children to develop social skills, build resilience, make more friends, be more creative and care more about the planet. Right now, this is more important than ever.
For these reasons, improving our children’s playtime and making them the highest quality that they can be is crucial to us.
We are very excited to participate in the Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) primary programme, which is endorsed and supported by Sport England and runs in hundreds of schools across the UK and worldwide.
Our Opal Working Group …
Fiona Roberts – Curricular lead for Play
Keren Davis – Play Coordinator
Phil White – Estate Manager
Ann Morrin – Governor representative
Richard Glover – Parent rep
Sam Rainey – Parent rep
Sarah Rainey– Parent rep
Cath Prisk – OPAL mentor
If you want to speak to any of us about Opal play, please do find us …
we are happy to answer any questions and to listen to any further ideas that you may have
Our Opal Vision
As a school, we endeavour to provide consistently high quality, sustainable play opportunities for all children. These inclusive opportunities in play are achieved by offering carefully considered outdoor spaces, equipment and toys that offer a rich choice of accessible play experiences for every child.
Our Values:
- CARE in order to develop different play opportunities with different people across the school and take care of the equipment that the children have the opportunity to use.
- DREAM to expand their creativity through imaginative play.
- DARE to take reasonable risk in their play and to try out new things.
The way we conduct ourselves inside the classroom by demonstrating our school values and our school rules (Ready, Respectful, Safe) is replicated in the way we play together.
Our Three Year Opal Action-Plan
Opal Policy
We believe that our children’s playtimes are incredibly important to their health and well-being. For this reason, we have written a policy dedicated to Opal Playtimes. GPS Play Policy April 2024
Opal Play Rangers
We have some trained Opal Play Rangers who after applying for the role were interviewed.
Their job is to ensure that our playtimes run smoothly and to make sure that all children have someone to play with. They have certain allocated jobs and focus areas.
Please ask any of our Play Rangers for help if you need anything at all at playtime.
What do our children think of Opal playtimes?
“Mrs Davis is the best – she’s the OPAL lady” (this is the comment that initiated the discussion!)
“I can see my brother and their friends”
“I love it!”
“I get to see friends and have fresh air”
“I love it because there are lots of toys to play with”
“There are lots of toys and I play with lots of friends”
“I make more friends”
“The woodchip area is great fun”
“I love the kayaks”
“You can ask anyone to be your friend”
“Every day I can ask more people to be my friend and play with me”
“The woodchip construction area is fun”
They were also asked if they could remember what playtime was like before OPAL.
They all struggled to remember this:
“I can’t remember play before OPAL”
“It was horrible as there were no toys”
Communication Home
The Power of Playtimes: A Parent’s Guide
Power-of-Playtimes-Parents-Guide
Do you have any donations that we may be able to use?
If so, please email Keren Davis (davisk@greatstoneschool.co.uk), our Opal Play Coordinator, or call the school office (01797 363916) and ask to speak to Keren and she will let you know if it is something that we can use.