OPAL is coming to Harrietsham C of E Primary School

Watch this space!

As a school we will be starting a new and exciting play project in September - OPAL Play.  OPAL play is an exciting programme - OPAL work with schools to improve playtimes for all children. 

What is OPAL?

Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) is a community interest company (CIC) dedicated to providing

services to schools and organisations in England and Wales to improve the quality of play

opportunities for all children. OPAL staff have expertise in teaching, school improvement, landscape

design, project management, play and strategic planning. 

The OPAL Primary Programme offers schools a structured process, with mentored support provided for up to two years and many resources, to enable schools to permanently change both their environment and their culture to enable provision of amazing playtimes every day.

To date, OPAL has run programmes in over 1000 schools throughout the whole UK and has recently expanded to Spain, France, Poland, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia.

The OPAL Vision

At OPAL we have seen just how much of an impact improving play can make to a school. We are not just talking about playtimes being a bit less bother or about children being a bit happier. We are talking about cultural transformation.

When you address a need that is so fundamental to children's physical and mental well-being as play, and you do it well, it is impossible to think of how you ran a school and didn’t do this.

Our vision is that every child in every school has an amazing hour of high-quality play every day – with no exceptions. If one child is not enjoying playtimes, then things still need improving.

We want every school to plan for, resource and evaluate the quality of their play provision as if it were an important human right, essential to all aspects of children’s development and a source of joy and happiness that every child can access because it is all of these things'.

For more information about OPAL play, please see: Home - Outdoor Play And Learning

Our OPAL Policy and Information for Families

Our children need access to different play types ...

Our initial reactions to OPAL

We showed our staff and families the video below of OPAL ...

These words were used by our staff to describe the video:

These words were used by our families to describe the video:

Our Site Development Begins to extend our Play Space ...

As a school, we are incredibly lucky to have so much surrounding land for our children to use.

However, this land is not currently securely fenced in and our children only have access to a playground within our fenced perimeter.

Well, all of this is about to change - big changes are occurring at the back of the school...

The disappearing mound

The diggers arrive ...

The ground is cleared and the vegetation is mulched ...

Mr Grant and Miss Bradley are on hand to oversee the clearance ...

The mound is removed and the land is made as flat as possible ...

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Nearly there ...

Fencing is added to make the space secure and safe ...

We visited a Platinum OPAL School.

Watch out children - the teachers have been practising their skills of cable reel walking!