O.P.A.L. 

It has long been recognised that ‘play’ is fundamental to a child’s health, happiness, development and wellbeing; enabling individual desires and needs to be met. Evidence, from varied research, states that children spend 20% of their time in school playing. This information led staff to reflect upon how daily break, and lunch times, could be improved at Redby Academy. 

Following discussions and in-depth planning, in regard to transforming the quality of playtimes, our OPAL journey began in July 2022.

The OPAL vision is:

“Every child, in every school, has an amazing hour of high quality play every day”

As a school, we share the Opal vision, recognising the enormous benefits play has on a child’s life.

We have developed the OPAL approach and worked with our school community to improve our play provision for all ages. 

Our school grounds have two traditional play yards and traditionally these spaces have been under used, however through the OPAL project, our school site is being transformed to offer the highest quality play experiences …..whatever the weather!

The school play grounds, now divided into different zones, offer children the opportunity to play in whichever area they chose, with friends/peers of their choosing. Children have the freedom to: explore and play creatively, use their imagination, experiment, indulge in problem solving and have fun using a wide range of available resources.

The outdoor areas continually evolve, offering an increasingly wide range of play opportunities the children evidently enjoy, including: creating dens, making new recipes in the mud kitchen, loose part construction, creating games with small world toys, zipping round the yard on scooters or having quiet, reflective time in the reading and games sheds. Children are continually having fun and developing life skills of: sharing, team work, problem solving, communication and resilience whilst also developing expanding their individual flair, creativity and imagination.

Our OPAL play project has been a great success to date. The children very much enjoy being outside, active and learning. It is apparent that the project is going from strength to strength but there is always scope for enhancement and further enrichment. With the support of our OPAL team and fantastic families the ‘world of play’ will continue to be transformed; capturing and inspiring our children’s imaginations.