Opal

Tunbury Primary School has begun its OPAL journey to improve playtime opportunities through a new and exciting programme designed to enhance play. The TSA has funded Tunbury’s Opal programme to improve the experience of every child who attends our school.

What is OPAL?

The Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) Primary Programme is based on children learning through play as well as through good teaching. 20% of a child’s school life is playtime (which is equivalent to 1.4 years of primary school) so we want to make sure that every child has high quality play every day. The programme is a structured process with mentor support for up to 2 years and the need for many resources to create our vision. OPAL has run their award winning programme in over 100 UK and international schools helping them to develop rich play environments and encouraging children to take positive risks. The benefits to improved play are endless but can improve physical activity, resilience, socialisation, mental health, creativity, enjoyment and cooperation.

Our OPAL working group

Mr G Taylor (Curricular Lead for Play)

Miss L Morgan (Curricular Lead for Play)

Mrs A Box (Play Coordinator)

Mrs R Austin (Headteacher)

Mr S Nairn (OPAL Governor)

Mrs Sartain (Business manager)

Jenny Soto-Briley (Parent on TSA)

Our children need access to different types of play…

Our OPAL journey begins…

As a school, we are very fortunate to have so much space surrounding our school building for our children to use. However, we do not have enough resources for all of our children to have an excellent play experience. Our next step is to zone our grounds and begin collecting donations. We will be sending out more information shortly on the types of things we are looking for, and we hope you can help!