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Opal Playtimes

  • What is Opal Playtime?

    Opal playtimes is an initiative Thomas Willingale started in January 2024. Our aim is to get children playing with a range of equipment, using more of the school site in order to become more creative, develop collaborative and social experiences, improve balance, fitness and skill sets as well as having lots of fun.

    At lunchtimes the children have the opportunity to play in different areas and with different equipment such as the wheeled area, the sandpit, the dressing up and performance area, the water play area, the large apparatus area, the sensory garden, the reading shed, arts and crafts, MUGA (multi use games area) and small world toys amongst many other things. From the start we have seen a marked difference in the children's behaviour and happiness at lunchtimes. There are less accidents despite there being more equipment outside for them to play with.

    Some of Year 6 children support the younger children with their play as 'Play Rangers'. They referee and support children in different games being played in the MUGA such as tennis and crazy golf. They supervise gladiators on the field, arts and crafts under the canopy and table tennis and they are also responsible for taking photos of children playing creatively in different ways - we will add their photos to this page regularly.

  • Opal Zones
  • Please see the picture of our school site which includes all of the different zones and what the children do in them.
  • The Muga is the Multi Use Games Area - the children can play basketball, unihoc, tennis, golf, archery or just wheel around on the trunkies in this area.
  • The Playground - within the playground there is a wheeled area where the children can ride bikes, scooters, skateboards, sit in pushchairs or suitcases and there is even a trolley! There is an art area where the children can be creative. A performance area where they can sing, dance and act to their heart's desire. There is a water play area where they can mess about with water, a story telling area and social areas where they can just sit and chat to their friends as well as lots of different toys to play with including a variety of small world toys.
  • The field includes our wonderful imagination zone - this is where the children can get really creative and use their imagination in the sandpit, the pirate ship, the digging area, the mud kitchen or they can hang around in the car we have created. They can play on the play trail, read in the literacy shed or dress up as whatever character they choose. They can play in the adventure area with the large, loose parts - such as tyres and pallets - having fun building dens or obstacle courses, they can roll around in the tunnel here too. They can just sit and chat to their friends in different social areas or they can be really daring and have a go on the slackline, create their own slide down the slope or use the slide built into the hill. Or they can have an adventure in the forest school area.
  • If your child wants to sit quietly, they can go to the Sensory Garden where they can hang around in the hammock, play board games or with small world toys such as lego. They can even join the chess club run by one of our children on a Tuesday.
  • The Opal Play Zones
  • Opal parents stay and play and presentation.pdf

 

Opal Spring 2025

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Opal Stay and Play 23rd September 2024

We had our first stay and play with parents joining their children and playing alongside them. The children and adults all seemed to be having a wonderful time!

Some pictures from lunchtimes:

What we have noticed:

Since introducing OPAL playtimes, we have seen a much happier and content cohort of children at our school.  When you walk onto the playground, the air is filled with laughter and music, the children are smiling and chatting away to each other or are deeply engrossed in an adventure with the small parts while wandering around our beautiful grounds.

The children - 

- play together making up stories and adventures using figures, dinosaurs, cars, prams and dolls etc

- build and explore using LEGO and other building items, use tyres and tree stumps to make obstacle courses and stepping stone paths.

- use wheeled items such as the bikes, scooters and skateboards - they zoom up and down our small slope on the playground and are aware of others and give way. (And on Fridays, KS2 get to use the whole playground on the wheeled items - this is called Freedom Friday.)

- use the sensory garden for a quiet, stimulating environment

- play ball games in the MUGA, the play rangers teach the children how to play tennis and golf amongst other games.

- use the small grass hill on the field, where the children can run up and down, or try sledging with the plastic sledge or other materials we out out.

- perform on the stage area with the radio playing and musical instruments or dress up and create a show for others to watch

- play in our mud kitchen or digging area which is used extensively for the creation of carefully prepared delicacies for friends!

- dig or make creations in the sandpit

- read quietly in the reading shed

-play table tennis under the canopy

-create their own designs in the arts and crafts area.

-challenge themselves and others to move items or 

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