OPAL
Play means… exploring, talking, thinking, trying, imagining, daydreaming, inventing, risk taking, giving, sharing, making choices, working, relaxing, challenging, taking turns, pausing, running, skipping, jumping, shouting, whispering, singing, making friends, being yourself, being someone else, role playing, acting, caring, negotiating, reading, writing, counting, measuring, trying things out, feeling, leading, following, problem solving, storytelling, building, laughing, smiling and learning.
Article 31 of the UNCRC, (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) recognises that every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.
Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) CIC is the UK’s leading, award-winning organisation providing school improvement through play. OPAL value play and suggest every child in every school has an amazing hour of high-quality play every day, with no exceptions.
Research has shown that during their 7 years at primary school, children play for 20% of their time - 1.4 years in total. Therefore, playtime supervisors deliver 20% of children's school experience. Downfield Primary School recognises the importance of play in early child development and in the Autumn of 2025 our OPAL journey began.
Here at Downfield Primary School, we have transformed our school grounds to ensure our playtimes are exciting and enriching for every child, every day. We have divided areas into zones, and our fundamental approach is that children have the freedom to choose where they play and who they play with. Children are learning to problem solve independently and collaboratively and are learning to manage and mitigate their own risk whilst playing outside.
OPAL is giving the children an opportunity to grow, develop and build resilience. It makes them happy and enjoy school more, and it improves behaviour and focus in the classroom.
Children have the freedom to explore and play in their own imaginative ways, experimenting, problem solving and having fun using a wide range of available resources which are very different in each zone.
Zone 1 – Water play
Zone 2 – Small world
Zone 3 – Music and Wheeled play
Zone 4 – Tyres
Zone 5 – Large Loose Parts (pallets, canoe, cable drums...)
Zone 6 – Football
Zone 7 – Messy Café / Mud kitchen
Zone 8 – Scooters and wheels
Our outdoor provisions are continually being developed and offer a wide range of play opportunities. The children love playing in all the different areas including rolling in tyres, creating dens, new recipes in the mud kitchen, creating games with small world toys or whizzing round the playground on the scooters. The children are having fun and are developing life skills such as teamwork, problem solving, communication, resilience whilst also developing their creativity and imagination.
