OPAL Play – Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

At Shepherdswell Primary School, we recognise that play is a vital part of every child’s development and wellbeing. Through our OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) approach, we are committed to providing high-quality, inclusive play opportunities that allow every child to explore, create, take appropriate risks, and develop independence.

Our play provision reflects our Christian vision of fulfilling our God-given potential. We are a school family with God at the centre, sharing love, gratitude, justice and determination in all that we do. Our play culture is built on kindness, inclusion and fairness, ensuring every child is valued and has a voice.

We intend for our OPAL play offer to:

Promote our school values of Love, Gratitude, Justice and Determination
Support children in becoming Wellbeing Warriors, Lifelong Learners and Courageous Adventurers
Provide rich, varied and stimulating play experiences for all children
Improve physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing
Encourage creativity, resilience, teamwork and problem-solving
Ensure play is accessible and welcoming to every child, regardless of background or ability
Support positive attitudes to learning through happier, healthier playtimes

We recognise that play is child-led, intrinsically motivated and essential for healthy development. We respect every child’s right to play as a high priority within school life.

Implementation

We implement OPAL through strategic leadership, careful planning, and ongoing development of our outdoor environments and play culture.

This includes:

A whole-school commitment to OPAL principles in decision-making that affects play
Strong leadership and operational support to maintain and develop quality play provision
A wide range of play environments including the Outdoor Learning Centre, sensory areas, gardens, loose-parts zones and imaginative play spaces
Access to varied loose parts and open-ended resources that promote creativity, teamwork and communication
Opportunities for children to lead, design and shape their play experiences
Inclusive play spaces that support children of all abilities and needs
Staff training to support play, rather than direct it, while ensuring safety and inclusion
A risk–benefit approach to play, following Play Safety Forum and HSE guidance
Dynamic risk management, where children are supported to recognise and manage risk themselves
Opportunities for mixed-age play and social development
Links between play, wellbeing, behaviour, and learning across the curriculum

Our environments are designed to be welcoming, challenging and stimulating, offering children choice, independence and responsibility.

Shepherdswell Primary School - OPAL play policy

1.Commitment

Our school undertakes to refer to this play policy in all decisions that affect children’s play. Our school is committed to providing the strategic and operational leadership needed to provide and maintain quality play provision for all of our children.

2.Rationale

Our school believes that all children need opportunities to play that allow them to explore, manipulate, experience and affect their environment. We believe play provision should be welcoming and accessible to every child, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, economic or social circumstances, ethnic or cultural background or origin, or individual abilities.

The OPAL Primary Programme rationale is that “… better, more active and creative playtimes can mean happier and healthier children, and having happier, healthier, more active children usually results in a more positive attitude to learning in school, with more effective classroom lessons, less staff time spent resolving unnecessary behavioural problems, fewer playtime accidents, happier staff and a healthier attitude to life.”

Fulfilling our God-given potential

We are a school family with God at the centre, enabling us to share God’s love within our community and beyond. We protect those with no voice by standing up to injustice.

Every child is valued and special with individual needs driving their Shepherdswell learning experience, creating an environment where we all can flourish and grow.

Love: Treating everyone with kindness as we are all special in God’s eyes

Gratitude: Having a readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness

Justice: We stand up for those with no voice

Determination: The key that determines our destination

3.Definition and value of play

Play is defined as a process that is intrinsically motivated, directed by the child and freely chosen by the child. Play has its own value and provides its own purpose. It may or may not involve equipment or other people.

We believe play has many benefits, including:

Play is critical to children’s health and wellbeing, and essential for their physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development.
Play enables children to explore the physical and social environment, as well as different concepts and ideas.
Play enhances children’s self-esteem and their understanding of others through freely chosen social interactions, within peer groups, with individuals, and within groups of different ages, abilities, interests, genders, ethnicities and cultures.
Play requires ongoing communication and negotiation skills, enabling children to develop a balance between their right to act freely and their responsibilities to others.
Play enables children to experience a wide range of emotions and develop their ability to cope with these, including sadness and happiness, rejection and acceptance, frustration and achievement, boredom and fascination, fear and confidence.
Play encourages self-confidence and the ability to make choices, problem solve and to be creative.
Play maintains children’s openness to learning, develops their capabilities and allows them to push the boundaries of what they can achieve.

4.Aims

In relation to play our school aims to:

Ensure play settings provide a varied, challenging and stimulating environment.
Allow children to take risks and use a common-sense approach to the management of these risks and their benefits.
Provide opportunities for children to develop their relationships with each other.
Enable children to develop respect for their surroundings and each other.
Aid children’s physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development.
Provide a range of environments that will encourage children to explore and play imaginatively.
Provide a range of environments that will support children’s learning across the curriculum and learning about the world around them.
Promote independence and teamwork within children.
Build emotional and physical resilience.

5.Rights

We respect every child’s right to play and hold this as a high priority.

6.Benefit and risk

‘Play is great for children’s wellbeing and development. When planning and providing play opportunities, the goal is not to eliminate risk, but to weigh up the risks and benefits. No child will learn about risk if they are wrapped in cotton wool.’

Managing Risk in Play Provision: An Implementation Guide (Play Safety Forum, 2012)

The school will use the Health and Safety Executive guidance document Children’s Play and Leisure – Promoting a Balanced Approach (September 2012) as the principal value statement informing its approach to managing risk in play. In doing so, the school will adopt a risk-benefit approach as detailed in Managing Risk in Play Provision: An Implementation Guide (Play Safety Forum, 2012).

Risk-taking is an essential feature of play provision and of all environments in which children legitimately spend time at play. Play provision aims to offer children the chance to encounter acceptable risks as part of a stimulating, challenging and managed play environment. As outlined in the play sector publication ‘Best Play’, play provision should aim to ‘manage the balance between the need to offer risk and the need to keep children and young people safe from harm’.

In addition to standard risk-benefit assessments the school will practice dynamic risk management with children, encouraging them to identify and manage risks in an environment where adults are present to support them.

7.Supervision

The law requires that children in school have supervision but for primary school playtimes there are no stated ratios. During the school day there should be one or more adults present outdoors. The school recognises OPAL’s three models of supervision: Direct, Remote and Ranging. Except for new children in reception, whose skills and orientation in the school environment need to be assessed, the school does not believe direct supervision is possible or beneficial. Supervisors will use ranging and remote supervision models, so that children can quickly find an adult and adults can patrol large sites to gain an awareness of the kinds of play and levels of risk likely to be emerging.

When there is more than one class outside, there is always more than one adult. This applies during lessons and playtimes. Children who require additional support will be supervised in line with their EHCP or SEN support plan.

Should an accident occur, there is always a qualified first aider on duty and every member of the play team has a first aid bumbag on them.

8.The adult’s role in play

The school will help children maximise the benefits they can gain from play by the provision of trained staff who are informed by and work in accordance with the Playwork Principles. Staff will use and refer to these principles when appropriate interventions are needed, and ultimately will strive for facilitating an environment that nurtures children’s self-directed play.

The playworker’s core function is to create an environment that will stimulate children’s play and maximise their opportunities for a wide range of play experiences. A skilled and experienced playworker is capable of enriching the child’s play experience both in terms of the design and resources of the physical environment and in terms of the attitudes and culture fostered within the play setting. Playworkers are a channel of access to new materials and tools and they can act as a stimulus to children to explore and learn. They are also available to participate in the play if invited.

Online Playwork training can be found on https://outdoorplayandlearning.org.uk

9.Equality and diversity

Through providing a rich play offer meeting every child’s needs we will ensure all children, regardless of age, gender, race, disability or other special needs, can develop and thrive, build strong relationships and enjoy school.

We aim to prepare children and young people for living within a diverse society with increasing global connections and controversial issues. We work hard to build strong and trusting relationships with our pupils and their families in order to harness their engagement and enjoyment in all aspects of school life. We recognise that pupils and family members may experience a range of different needs during different times in their lives and we endeavour to meet these needs by working in close partnership.

10.Environment

We believe that a rich play setting should ensure that all children have access to stimulating environments that are free from unacceptable or unnecessary risks and thereby offer children the opportunity to explore for themselves through their freely chosen play.

We will strive to continually improve the quality and diversity of our school’s grounds to enhance play. We will use the document ‘Best Play’ to guide us on what a quality play environment should contain. www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/pubs/bestplay.pdf

A rich play setting supports safeguarding, helps children develop confidence in team building and advocating for their own rights, increases children’s social and emotional capabilities and helps develop a love and enjoyment of the outdoors, which is a key foundation for caring for the environment.

APPENDIX A

CHILDREN’S PLAY AND LEISURE – PROMOTING A BALANCED APPROACH

1.Health and safety laws and regulations are sometimes presented as a reason why certain play and leisure activities undertaken by children and young people should be discouraged. The reasons for this misunderstanding are many and varied. They include fears of litigation or criminal prosecution because even the most trivial risk has not been removed. There can be frustration with the amounts of paperwork involved, and misunderstanding about what needs to be done to control significant risks.

2. The purpose of this statement is to give clear messages which tackle these misunderstandings. In this statement, HSE makes clear that, as a regulator, it recognises the benefits of allowing children and young people of all ages and abilities to have challenging play opportunities.

3. HSE fully supports the provision of play for all children in a variety of environments. HSE understands and accepts that this means children will often be exposed to play environments which, whilst well-managed, carry a degree of risk and sometimes potential danger.

4. HSE wants to make sure that mistaken health and safety concerns do not create sterile play environments that lack challenge and so prevent children from expanding their learning and stretching their abilities.

5. This statement provides all those with a stake in encouraging children to play with a clear picture of HSE’s perspective on these issues. HSE wants to encourage a focus on the sensible and proportionate control of real risks1 and not on unnecessary paperwork. HSE’s primary interest is in real risks arising from serious breaches of the law and our investigations are targeted at these issues. Recognising the benefits of play Key message: ‘Play is great for children’s well-being and development. When planning and providing play opportunities, the goal is not to eliminate risk, but to weigh up the risks and benefits. No child will learn about risk if they are wrapped in cotton wool’.

6. HSE fully recognises that play brings the world to life for children. It provides for an exploration and understanding of their abilities; helps them to learn and develop; and exposes them to the realities of the world in which they will live, which is a world not free from risk but rather one where risk is ever present. The opportunity for play develops a child’s risk awareness and prepares them for their future lives.

7. Striking the right balance between protecting children from the most serious risks and allowing them to reap the benefits of play is not always easy. It is not about eliminating risk. Nor is it about complicated methods of calculating risks or benefits. In essence, play is a safe and beneficial activity. Sensible adult judgements are all that is generally required to derive the best benefits to children whilst ensuring that they are not exposed to unnecessary risk. In making these judgements, industry standards such as EN 1176 offer benchmarks that can help.