OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) supports all children to make the most of their play experiences at school. Over the course of their time at Langafel, children will spend over 1000 hours playing. Through OPAL we will make that play meaningful and socially beneficial, encouraging pupils to share, communicate and perform dynamic risk assessments of their activities and environments.

With the much-valued support of FOLS, parents and our amazing Play Team, our OPAL offer has continued to grow, culminating in Langafel being awarded the OPAL Platinum certificate. We are hugely proud of becoming an OPAL Platinum School and look forward to continuing to deliver a fantastic play offer for all children at Langafel.

Our OPAL assessor was so proud of the progress we have made as a school and this was reflected in the glowing report we received:

“It was a joy to see your playtimes in action. There was so much amazing play happening at lunchtime. I particularly liked watching the children window cleaning (genius!), the creativity in the sand pit and mud kitchen and the fantastic dancing. It was wonderful to see so many children having such a lovely lunchtime. It's great to see how the school has developed a variety of areas to provide problem solving and critical thinking opportunities for all children.”

This enthusiasm for OPAL was shared in parental feedback from our stay and play.

“The children were all loving their play choices. One little one took on a ‘foreman’ role in the water area, controlling the tap and the pipe (great to see natural leadership), and there was solo and paired play on the go-karts. There was so much to do…it is hard to imagine anyone getting bored!”

Not to mention the feedback from the most important people:

“I can explore nature when digging. Yesterday, I found worms.” Hope.

“I love making sandcastles, ice-cream and pizza in the sandpit.” Olivia.

“I think it is great that we have a lot more things to play with and all year groups are mixing.” Antonio.

“I like seeing my big sister at play times.” Rosie.

“I like to play with my family and friends at lunchtime.” Harris.

OPAL will continue to grow at Langafel with the support of our dedicated staff and pupil play rangers who contribute to establishing new zones and the guidelines for them. We look forward to you sharing this exciting adventure for play at Langafel.