Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) 

At Bank View Primary School, we believe that it is important that life is more than a virtual/digital world. We are passionate about your physical wellbeing and will therefore provide opportunities for our pupils to develop resilience and manage risk and elements of danger, through exploring and having fun outdoors.  

What is OPAL ?

OPAL is an award-winning, mentor-supported school improvement programme that addresses all the areas that schools must plan for if they want to strategically and sustainably improve the quality of their play opportunities. OPAL is the only programme of its kind that has been independently proven to sustainably improve the quality of play in British primary schools. 

OPAL at playtimes 

Our ethos of developing the whole child puts social interaction at the heart of what we do. We viewed the OPAL project as a way of redressing the balance and providing children with richer, more meaningful ways of interacting with their peers and catching up for the lost time. The development of social skills is crucial in providing children with a positive school experience and we are confident that our children – who now have a more purposeful, enjoyable and rewarding lunchtime experience – are fulfilled throughout every part of the day, which enables them to be more receptive to learning inside and outside the classroom. This, ultimately, fits our long-held belief that happy children learn best.

‘At Bank View, we recognise that in play children may need to make a noise, get dirty, make a mess and sometimes be out of the direct gaze of adults. We believe that the role of adults is to support the play process. We aim for children to have the opportunity for ‘free play’ within the school grounds.’ 

Through OPAL we have: 

• Happier children 
• Children come into class ready to learn 
• More active, fit and energetic children 
• A fully inclusive playtime offer 
• More opportunities for children to be creative and make decisions 
• Children who can develop independence and resilience 
• Increased social skills and collaboration between children 

…. and most importantly fun! 

What your child needs for OPAL 

We want the children to be out every day, in all weathers, in all parts of our grounds. Please make sure they have wellies and a warm coat in school. Waterproof trousers are a good idea too if they love getting mucky. 

 Assemblies

Every few weeks we have a play assembly where we gather the children together to ensure that there is communication between adults and children about play. This forms a crucial part of the OPAL process it allows us to celebrate play, gain the children’s ideas about play development, discuss safety and risk management and then continue to innovate our playtimes.

Don’t throw it away!  

We are continually developing our play offer as we work through the OPAL programme and are always looking for any spare items you have that we could use. 

Items like these are always appreciated:

• Suitcases of any size and type – anything on wheels/castors 
• Plastic milk crates and wooden pallets 
• Briefcases, especially hard-cased ones 
• Road signs and cones 
• Kitchen pots, pans, baking trays, worktables, wooden spoons, chopping boards 
• Tools like spades, trowels, brooms and buckets 
• Tubes of various sizes and various materials 
• Nets and ropes 
• Keyboards/torches/laptops/calculators that are no longer working 
• Fabric (large sheets/brightly coloured fabric/saris) 
• Foam sheets/body boards 
• Cable drums 
• Guttering 
• Noodles (the type you use in the swimming pool!) 
• Pegs (to help to set up dens) 

Thank you to everyone who has donated items so far. 

The links below give further information