OPAL

In June 2025, our school achieved the Platinum Standard for OPAL Play; the highest award possible! This incredible achievement places us in the top 1% of schools nationally for the quality of our outdoor play provision.

We’re so proud of the joyful, creative, and adventurous play opportunities our children enjoy every day.

🎥 Take a look at the video below to see our inspirational play provision in action!

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OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) is an award-winning, mentor supported school improvement programme that addresses all the areas that schools must plan for if they want to strategically and sustainably improve the quality of their play opportunities. Its success comes from a series of interrelated actions undertaken with specialist support from an OPAL mentor. This embeds play into the school’s policies and practices and establishes clear guiding principles and strategies for initiating lasting changes at playtimes.

‘Play is great for children’s well-being and development. When planning and providing play opportunities, the goal is not to eliminate risk, but to weigh up the risks and benefits. No child will learn about risk if they are wrapped in cotton wool’ - Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation guide is published for Play England 2012.

OPAL is a huge part of our school day at Grove Street Primary School and both children and staff look forward to getting outside to play, explore and develop together. We are committed to ensuring high quality play opportunities are available to all our children and believe that play is essential for physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of each child.