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OUTDOOR PLAY & LEARNING (OPAL)

WHAT IS OPAL?

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Research has shown that 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 Spring 2017 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 in the small world area 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.

OPAL AT ENGLISH MARTYRS'

Here at English Martyrs' Primary 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. Most of our best childhood memories are from playing outdoors, climbing trees and exploring the wide world around us. OPAL gives us the opportunity to give those memories to your children. OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) is all about using naturally and man made resources to allow children to be inspired and creative at playtime.

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We first launched OPAL in October 2019 and had an amazing response from our children and parents. OPAL was a big miss in school, during the Covid -19 Pandemic, but we are now in a position to re-launch  and we want OPAL to be bigger and better than ever

before!

 

Click here for the OPAL website

 

What does this mean for us?​

  • Happier children

  • Children coming into class ready to learn

  • A fully inclusive playtime offer

  • It allows children an opportunity to be creative and make decisions

  • Children develop independence and resilience skills

  • Increased social skills

  • …. and most importantly fun!

MEET THE PLAY TEAM:
MR KENNEDY

Deputy Headteacher

Play Curriculum Lead

MRS JEREMIAH

Play Coordinator

MRS LEATHART

Play Leader

MRS MORRISON

Play Coordinator

MRS GILBERT

Play Leader

OPAL PLATINUM AWARD

We are delighted to announce that English Martyrs' has been graded as a PLATINUM OPAL school. This has been awarded after working with OPAL to improve our play and learning opportunities, especially during lunchtimes. 

 

We have seen improvements made to our school grounds, as well as many different opportunities to take part in activities, orgnaised by our play team. 

 

'This means that every child has an amazing playtime every day. It also means that play is taken seriously at the school and is given appropriate leadership, planning, evaluation and resources. OPAL Platinum status puts English Martyrs' in the top 0.05 percentile of UK primary schools in terms of the quality of your play offer. 

Playtimes at English Martyrs' are inclusive, joyful and provide a wonderful variety of types of play.'

 

Thank you for all of your continued support as we look to further improve our play offer for the children at English Martyrs'

 

We look forward to our official award presentation, later in the summer term. 

HOW CAN PARENTS & CARERS BE INVOLVED?

WE WANT YOUR JUNK!​

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Thank you so much for all the generous OPAL donations so far. It is fabulous to see how much the children are enjoying their OPAL lunch times.

 

Our Play Leaders are still looking for a few items if you have them:

  • Bikes

  • Helmets

  • Prams

  • Scooters

  • Skateboards

  • Wellies & Waterproofs - all sizes 

 

If you have any of the above items, we would really appreciate it if you could drop them off next to the OPAL shed (on the middle field) when dropping off or collecting your child.

 

Do you work in a trade? Could you supply us with items such as pallets, cable reels, cones, pipes or packaging? We would welcome any of these items to enhance our play offer!

 

Thank you for your continued support!

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