OPAL: Outdoor Play and learning

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School is proud to be an OPAL school.

Children spend 7 years at our school:  1.4 of those years are at playtime! Being an OPAL school allows us to strategically and sustainably improve the quality of our play offer. It embeds play into our school policies and practices and establishes clear, guiding principles for initiating lasting changes at playtime. We can see an increase in their play literacy, resilience and collaboration.

Play is not messing about. It is the process evolution has come up with to enable children to learn all of the things that cannot be taught, while also having so much fun. There are certain things children must have in order to be able to play. These include:

• Having clothes that they can play in – waterproof clothing, suitable footwear, spare clothes if necessary
• Having things to play with.
• Having a certain amount of freedom.

Please ensure that your child comes to school with suitable clothes and footwear to allow them to play comfortably outside.

You can read our Play Policy here:

St Mary’s Play Policy Nov 2023

See what our pupils have been enjoying recently: