OPAL Playtimes

So what is going on with lunchtimes at NKS? Hopefully your child/ren has been coming home with positive comments about lunchtimes since half term. We have signed up to a programme called OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) to improve the quality of play at NKS. We know that play is a vital part of children’s development. We also know that children get less and less outdoor creative play nowadays and more screen time. Even kids who go to lots of clubs and activities do this in a highly supervised and structured way which means there are limited opportunities for them to be creative, imaginative, think and problem-solve for themselves. Not to mention screen time…

I am personally convinced this is a fundamental reason for the rise in mental health problems in children.

So, with this in mind, with support from Louise our OPAL liaison, we are making changes to playtimes. OPAL provide us with a tried and tested structure, training and experience on risk and hazard assessing to keep everything safe. We are starting gradually and educating the children and ourselves as we go—they are very much part of the process with both ideas and being responsible for safe play.
So far, we have opened the playground up to everyone at lunchtime (no more KS1 area, Apple area) which has led to children from a variety of year groups playing together. It has also brought about more thoughtfulness from the older children who look out for the little ones.

We have also put music, construction and dressing-up out every day (thank you for the donations —please keep it coming!).