Here at Brookside we are committed to ensuring quality play opportunities are available to all our children. Play is an integral part of the school day and, on average, takes up 20% of a child’s time in school: around 1.4 years of their primary school life!

We are working with OPAL to provide amazing opportunities for play for all the children at Brookside.

At Brookside, we recognise play as a way for children to explore and connect with the world around them. Therefore, it is our duty to ensure our site, staff and skills optimise the most fulfilling and rich play opportunities possible during breaktimes and lunchtimes. In doing so, we aim to highlight the interconnection between play, learning, development, health and happiness.

Many of our best childhood memories are from playing outdoors, climbing trees and exploring the wide world around us. OPAL creates the opportunity for the children at Brookside to develop those memories too. OPAL is all about using natural and man made resources to allow children to become inspired and creative at playtime.

There are many proven benefits for schools which carry out the OPAL Programme. These include: greater enjoyment of school, less teaching time lost to disputes between children, fewer accidents and greatly improved behaviour. Not only this, but research tells us that children who play outdoors move more, sleep more, eat better, are happier and even care about the planet more.

To find out more about OPAL click here: OPAL Outdoor Play and Learning

How can families help?

Play is not simply messing about but is the process that enables children to learn about themselves and others. There are certain things children must have in order to be able to play. These include:

  • Having clothes they can play in
  • Having things to play with
  • Having a certain amount of freedom

We welcome the commitment from all of our parents to the essentials outlined above.

Part of adventurous OPAL play is that children will be able to enjoy the freedom of choosing how they play and managing the challenges they meet along the way… even when it means they get a littler messier! We feel the experiences fostered through OPAL are essential to every child’s physical, mental, social and adventurous well-being.

Loose Parts

To kick-start OPAL we collected a huge variety of loose parts. Loose parts are any materials that can be easily moved, combined, and incorporated into children’s free play. We continue to reach out to our wider school community to donate loose parts to add more variety to what we can offer our children and to continually replace broken items.

If you have anything you think we may like, big or small, please let Mrs Clark or Mrs Evans know, or just bring them into school. Your rubbish is our treasure!

Click here for more detail.

Click here for more detail.

Golden Welly

The Golden Welly has been awarded weekly to the class which collected the most loose parts on our OPAL bingo sheets.

We are now awarding the Golden Welly to children each week who have really impressed the Play Team with their play, teamwork, tidying up and all OPAL behaviours.

OPAL Fun!

We all enjoy being outside all the year round, using all of our school grounds. OPAL allows us to be creative, to problem solve, to play with friends of all ages and most of all to have fun!

The Power of Playtime! and  HSE children’s play

OPAL loose parts letter- Sept’23

Loose parts themed weeks

Happy Playtimes

Principles of Happy Playtimes

Play Policy

OPAL Newsletter – Dec ’24

OPAL Newsletter – July ’24

OPAL Newsletter – May ’24

OPAL Newsletter – March ’24

OPAL Newsletter – Feb ’24

OPAL Newsletter – Jan ’24

OPAL Newsletter – Dec ’23

Play Charter

The children created a Play Charter which all children adhere to for happy OPAL playtimes.

OPAL Assemblies

We have regular OPAL assemblies which are part of planning and reflecting for play and are a key part of providing sufficient care for our children. We talk about activities and resources available, celebrate great play and discuss rules and expectations.