OPAL - Outdoor Play and Learning
We are delighted to be able to announce that after an 18-month intensive mentoring and development period it has been awarded the Platinum OPAL play award.
This means that it falls into the top 1% of schools in the country with respect to delivering excellence in play.
See here for the Parents' Guide to OPAL: The Power of Playtime!
In Summer 2023, we have introduced OPAL play times to Staveley Junior School. This is so every lunch time at school can be a fantastic, imaginative and fun experience every day. We are developing the use of our grounds at school so that children can use all of the spaces, including the field, the mud kitchen and the trees during the whole of play time. Children will be able to mix with other year groups and there will be much more free play and few activities that are on a rota. What they choose will be self-directed, intrinsically motivated and freely chosen.
Our aim is to have better, more active and creative playtimes. We seek happier and healthier children, and having happier, healthier, more active children usually results in a more positive attitude to learning in school.
Our school values at Staveley Junior School are ‘Dream, Believe, Achieve’. We seek for children to use their imagination and dream of all the different things they can do and be. Through this sort of creative play, they can begin to put their dreams into action and begin to believe that this can be a reality. Through this process, we seek for them to achieve their aims and goals however small or large they may be.
Do you have any items at home you can donate to school? See what's needed below: