OPaL
OPAL: Outdoor Play and Learning at Our School
We are proud to announce that our school is embarking on an exciting 2-year journey to become an OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) school. OPAL is an award-winning, school improvement programme that focuses on transforming playtimes into purposeful, inclusive, and enriching experiences for every child.
Why OPAL?
Play is not just a break from learning – it is learning. The OPAL programme is based on the idea that children need and deserve high-quality play opportunities every day. By embracing OPAL, we are making a commitment to improving the quality of play across the whole school day and recognising its powerful impact on well-being, behaviour, social development, and even academic motivation.
Purposeful Play
With OPAL, playtimes are no longer just "free time" – they become purposeful, creative, and challenging experiences that are carefully supported by staff and designed to meet the needs of all children. When children return to the classroom after an exciting, fulfilling play session, they are more ready to learn: they are calmer, more focused, and more motivated.
The 12 Play Types
OPAL is built on the idea that children need a wide variety of play experiences to develop fully. These are known as the 12 Play Types, and each one brings something unique to a child's development. Our goal is to make sure children have access to all 12 types during their time at school:
- Symbolic Play – Using objects, actions or ideas to represent other things (e.g., pretending a stick is a sword or a phone).
- Rough and Tumble Play – Physical, but friendly play like play fighting, wrestling, or chasing. It builds trust and social skills.
- Socio-Dramatic Play – Role-playing real-life situations such as playing ‘school’, ‘shop’, or ‘hospital’.
- Social Play – Interacting with others in playful ways like chatting, joking, turn-taking games or cooperative challenges.
- Creative Play – Making things using materials around them – e.g., building dens, making art from natural objects.
- Dramatic Play – Playing out imaginary situations that are often big or heroic, like pretending to be a dragon, spy, or superhero.
- Deep Play – Pushing boundaries and taking calculated risks, like climbing, balancing, or trying something new that takes courage.
- Exploratory Play – Investigating how things work, such as mixing mud and water, opening up objects, or discovering textures.
- Fantasy Play – Creating and living in imaginary worlds, with magical creatures, made-up rules, and entirely new realities.
- Imaginative Play – Using the mind to invent scenarios, characters or stories, often without physical props.
- Locomotor Play – Movement for movement’s sake: running, jumping, skipping, swinging, sliding – purely for the joy of motion.
- Mastery Play – Practising and repeating actions to gain control or skill, like stacking, spinning, digging, or perfecting a skill.
What This Means for Our School
Over the next two years, we will be working closely with the OPAL team to gradually transform our playtimes. This will include:
- Enhancing our outdoor spaces with more variety and materials for open-ended play.
- Training staff to support play in ways that are safe, inclusive, and enriching.
- Encouraging a culture that values risk, creativity, and exploration.
- Listening to children’s voices and involving them in designing and shaping their play environments.
The Benefits
Children who experience OPAL-style play:
- Have more fun and greater freedom
- Learn to cooperate, share and solve problems
- Develop resilience and confidence
- Come into lessons refreshed and ready to learn
- Feel more connected to school and to each other
We are excited to be starting this journey and look forward to sharing the transformation with our whole school community. Together, we can create a school where play is not only protected – it is celebrated.
