OPAL
OPAL- Outdoor Play and Learning.
At Chater Junior School, we are committed to ensuring quality play opportunities are available to all our children. We believe that play is essential for physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of each child. Most of our best childhood memories are from playing outdoors, climbing trees and exploring the wide world around us. OPAL gives us the opportunity to give those memories to your children. OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) is all about using naturally and man-made resources to allow children to be inspired and creative at playtime.
Please see our OPAL play policy for more detail.
Our Opal Journey so far...
July 2026
OPAL Award Ceremony
We are delighted to announce that our school has been awarded the prestigious OPAL Platinum Award at a special ceremony held on Wednesday 15th July 2025. This incredible achievement reflects the remarkable transformation of our playground into a vibrant environment that fosters creativity, exploration and inclusion through all 12 types of play. The award was presented by Libby Truscott, recognising the dedication and commitment of our whole school community over the past two years. During the ceremony, our OPAL Leads proudly shared highlights of the journey, expressing how much they have enjoyed creating a collaborative play environment where every child is included and where opportunities for risk are carefully managed to support safe, adventurous play. We are immensely proud of this achievement and of the positive impact it continues to have on our children's wellbeing, development and enjoyment of play, and we look forward to continuing to develop and enrich our play provision even further in the years ahead.
We Are Proud to Announce:
OPAL Platinum Award Achieved – 5th May 2026
We are delighted to share that our school has been awarded the OPAL Platinum Award, the highest level of achievement within the OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) Primary Programme. This prestigious accreditation was awarded on Tuesday 5th May 2026 and places our school within the top 1% of OPAL schools nationally.
This award recognises schools that deliver exceptional, fully embedded play provision — where play is valued, protected, and celebrated as a vital part of children’s development and wellbeing.
What Is the OPAL Platinum Award?
The OPAL Platinum Award is given only to schools that demonstrate outstanding practice across all areas of outdoor play. It reflects a whole‑school commitment to ensuring that every child experiences rich, inclusive, creative, and high‑quality play every day.
Platinum schools are considered national leaders in play, showcasing environments and systems that support children’s independence, imagination, social development, and happiness.
How We Achieved Platinum
To reach Platinum, our school demonstrated excellence across OPAL’s 18 Playwork Conditions, including:
- A strong, consistent whole‑school vision for play, led by committed leadership.
- High‑quality, varied play opportunities that support physical, social, imaginative, and exploratory play.
- Creative, well‑designed outdoor spaces, including loose parts, construction zones, quiet areas, active spaces, and opportunities for challenge.
- Inclusive play for all children, including those with SEND, SEMH, or communication needs.
- Clear improvements in wellbeing, behaviour, and engagement, with children returning to class calmer, happier, and ready to learn.
- A culture where staff, pupils, and families all value play as an essential part of school life.
This award reflects not just the quality of our play provision, but the strength of our community and the shared belief that play matters.
A Two‑Year Journey of Team Effort
Achieving Platinum marks the end of a two‑year transformation of our play culture and outdoor environment. This journey has involved:
- staff training and commitment,
- pupil leadership and enthusiasm,
- family involvement and support,
- and countless hours of planning, building, collecting, and improving.
It has been a true team effort, and we are incredibly proud of what our school community has achieved together.
Celebration Ceremony – 15th July 2026
To mark this fantastic achievement, we will be holding a special celebration ceremony on Wednesday 15th July 2026.
More details will be shared with families soon.
April 2026
Play Assemblies:
This term began with an inspiring whole‑school assembly led by Mrs Whitehurst, where children learned about the risks, expectations and exciting opportunities linked to the new OPAL zones being introduced. The assembly helped everyone understand how to play safely, respectfully and creatively as our OPAL provision continues to grow.
New zones on our playground:
In Week Two, we were delighted to launch two brand‑new areas: the Pond and Nature Zone and the Art Zone. These spaces have quickly become favourites, with children enjoying the chance to explore nature, observe wildlife, get creative and express themselves in new ways during lunchtime play.
Pond and Nature Zone
Art Zone
Summer play celebration:
We would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the 37 parents who joined us for our Summer Play Celebration. Your presence and enthusiasm made the afternoon truly special, and we deeply appreciate your ongoing support for our OPAL journey.
Parent voice:
As a school, we are now working towards achieving the OPAL Platinum Award, the highest level of OPAL accreditation. Our official audit will take place on 5th May 2026, and we are incredibly proud of the progress our community has made together.
To support our accreditation, we kindly ask parents to complete the feedback form about how OPAL has transformed lunchtimes over the past two years. Your reflections will form an important part of our audit, and we would be very grateful for your input.
Link:
March 2026
Spring OPAL Play date:
During the month of March, we had our second parent play date of the year. This play date took place on Thursday afternoon on the 5th of March 2026. Both parents and children enjoyed an afternoon that was filled with variety of play and shared happiness. Thank you to the parents and children who joined us on this wonderful afternoon!
Donations:
We have launched our OPAL bingo once again this term! We would really appreciate it if children could continue to bring in any of the equipment on the sheet below and donate them to our school for OPAL playtimes.
February 2026
New equipment on our Playground:
This month was an exciting month for OPAL. We launch two new pieces of equipment, the clock (timer) and the badminton zone. The clock will be used to encourage fair play and tidy up times that are collaborative. Badminton has been on our wish list for months and we are so excited to add the new zone to our playground!
January 2026
Play Assemblies:
Mrs Whitehurst held an assembly all about ‘How OPAL has changed our playground’. The assembly started off by celebrating how our playground has changed and how exciting playtimes are now. Mrs Whitehurst launched a new area in our ball zone. This area is the target practise zone which will be used to better our striking skills in football. The assembly ended off with Mrs Whitehurst sharing that pupil voice will take place over the week, which will allow the OPAL play team to have a better understanding of what is valued on our playground and what the next OPAL goals will be.
December 2025
December was an exciting month for our OPAL club! Our creative and hardworking members came together to make two fantastic additions to our playground:
Our Playground Charter
We introduced a new charter to guide positive play and teamwork. It’s simple but powerful:
- We have fun!
- Be kind.
- Show respect.
- Safety first.
The Rope Wall
The children designed and built a brand-new rope wall! This feature encourages problem-solving, creativity, and rope-tying skills while adding a fun challenge to playtime.
To finish the month on a high note, we held a Celebration Assembly to recognise children who have shown collaboration, creativity, and respect during OPAL play sessions. Well done to everyone who contributed and made December such a success!
November 2025
Autumn OPAL Play Celebration
On Tuesday, 18th November, our school proudly welcomed parents and head teachers from other schools to join us during lunchtime for a special OPAL Play Celebration. This event was an opportunity to showcase the incredible progress we have made in transforming our playtimes through OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning).
The celebration was a resounding success, filled with smiles all around! Children immersed themselves in a wide variety of play experiences across different zones of the playground, including:
- Mud Kitchen – for messy, sensory fun
- Loose Parts Construction Zone – sparking creativity and teamwork
- Scooter and Skateboard Play – promoting balance and confidence
- Ball Sports – encouraging active play and cooperation
- Craft Station – inspiring imagination and artistic expression
- Dress Up and Dance Sessions – bringing joy and laughter to the day.
Mrs Whitehurst, our OPAL Play Lead, expressed how proud she felt of the journey so far and shared her heartfelt gratitude for the unwavering support from children, staff, parents, and governors.
Our visiting head teachers were impressed by the variety of activities and the way children were fully engaged and captivated throughout lunchtime. Parents were equally delighted, sharing wonderful feedback such as:
- “The amount of equipment is very impressive.”
- “Very happy, safe and cheerful environment.”
- “My child talks about OPAL playtimes every day.”
We are thrilled that OPAL playtimes have become such an enriching and enjoyable part of school life. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue developing and adding to our play opportunities, ensuring every child experiences the joy of play every day.
September 2025
Assembly
Our new academic year began with an informative OPAL assembly where we discussed the new OPAL play team, the characteristics of an OPAL leader, recapping our OPAL zones and risk assessing our new equipment.
Our 2025/2026 OPAL Play team
Our OPAL zones on our playground
Our new OPAL equipment in the movement zone
The movement zone is a favourite on the playground, and through pupil voice, we found that the children were eager to add a variety of equipment to the zone. As a result, we have added four new push bicycles, six new skateboards and two swing ball sets.
OPAL Club
We are so excited to share that this year we will be running an OPAL Club. This club will take place every Thursday with Mrs Whitehurst between 3.30 pm and 4.15 pm.
Donations:
In preparation for our loose parts area, we would greatly appreciate any donations of milk crates, wood planks, plastic pipes, and cable reels.
June/July 2025
Launching of our construction zone:
In addition to the excitement caused by our new digging area, we proudly launched our new construction zone over the course of the past month. This area is filled with a range of large building resources suitable for boat building, tower construction, obstacle courses, and much more!
Year 2/Year 5 OPAL event with Chater Infants School.
We ended a wonderful year with our Year 2/Year 5 OPAL event with Chater Infant School. This event allowed the Year 2 children to join us for a fun-filled afternoon exploring the routines and activities of OPAL Playtimes in preparation for when they join our school in the new academic year.
May 2025
Development of New Areas:
This month has been a busy month creating TWO new areas four our playground. Ms Pope is excited to share that the new digging area and social spaces are almost complete and will be ready to launch in June. A huge thank you to Mr Dicks and Mr Whitehurst for their help creating these areas!
March/April 2025
Lunch time fun!
The summer days have brought so much happiness and laughter to our playground. They children have enjoyed spending their lunchtimes immersing themselves in basketball games, playing in the mud kitchen and problem solving in the water play area.
Creative crafts!
Our playground is filled with colour and imagination!
February 2025
Spring Term Crafts:
Spring has sprung at Chater Junior School! The children have enjoyed having some warmer weather and sunnier days to spend their lunch times crafting. Thank you to Ms Kosinska for planning and preparing these amazing activities for the children!
New areas on our Playground:
We are so excited to share that our planting area is complete! Mrs Wylie and the gardening club have worked extremely hard to create this lovely area where children can interact and observe how plants grow! Each child in every class had the opportunity to plant a spring flower bulb (variations of daffodils and crocuses) and will be responsible for watering and looking after the plants. Thank you Mrs Wylie for this creating this wonderful space for our children!
Donations
Thank you to all the parents and children who donated toys and outdoor equipment in January, our donation shed is full! In addition, the soil has arrived for our digging area and the OPAL team is so excited to start the development of the new areas over the next two terms!
January 2025
Play Assemblies:
Miss Pope held an assembly all about ‘Celebration and Resourcing’. The assembly started off by celebrating all the wonderful types of play that has been observed on the playground at lunch times. Miss Pope then discussed the new projects the play team would be working on over the Spring and Summer term and encouraged children to bring in resources using the Bingo sheet.
December 2024
Play Assemblies:
We ended off this term with a celebration! Miss Pope was very excited to present the Positive Play Award.
This is an award given to a child who has inspired others with their imagination and enthusiasm on the playground. Well done to the following children:
Year 3: Hassan (3Y) & Bianca (3C)
Year 4: Najam (4G) & Musa (4A)
Year 5: Laaibah (5W) & Raiyan and Ilyas (5P)
Year 6: Ameliya (6C) & Rayan – 6R
December Crafts:
The playground has been full of excitement for the past two weeks. It has been a pleasure to see the children captivated by all the Crafting we have been doing!
Donations:
In preparation for new developments in the Spring Term, we are looking to collect the following items:
Large Items:
We would appreciate any donations of these items. All donations can be placed in our OPAL donations bin outside of the office or given to Mr Dicks (site manager).
November 2024
Play Assemblies:
This month we had two very important OPAL assemblies that took place. Our first assembly, focused of setting the expectations for play and reminders about playing safely during seasonal changes. Our second assembly was very exciting and launched our new water zone area! The children were very excited to explore this new area of play!
Autumn Term Crafts:
As the new Autumn season is now with us, the children were thrilled to immerse themselves in Autumn crafts. The children have exceeded expectations and have done a wonderful job at creating beautiful masterpieces each play time!
New Equipment:
The new term brought excitement with new play equipment! We have now added waterproof materials for den making, road signs to encourage role play in the movement area and three new trampolines to encourage gross motor skills in our play. In addition, we have included a variety of ball games into our play times to encourage and practise important ball skills such as hand-eye coordination, body awareness, movement planning and many more!
OPAL Parent Event:
On Monday 25th November, we held our inaugural Parent OPAL event after school, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the parents and children who participated. Your support in assisting with the construction of equipment to enhance our OPAL experience is greatly appreciated.
Donations:
In preparation for new developments, we are looking to collect the following items
Small World Items:
- - Farm animals
- - Dinosaurs
- - Transportation toys
Large Items:
We would appreciate any donations of these items. All donations can be placed in our OPAL donations bin outside of the office or given to Mr Dicks (site manager).
October 2024
All staff attended a training session led by an OPAL mentor Louise Taffe. The staff explored assessing risk on the playground around new/old equipment and seasonal changes. It was a very effective and informative training session.
Play Assemblies
Miss Pope led an assembly this month, all about Seasonal Changes and Celebrating Play. We celebrated how well the children were using our new equipment and collaborating at play times. Ms Pope introduced the Positive Play Award which is an award given to one child that has inspired other with their imagination and enthusiasm on the playground. This child will be chosen play the OPAL play leads at the end of every term.
In addition, we discussed the weather changes and the types of play we could have in the Winter months. It is important that all children have the appropriate clothing items at school daily, in order to make the most of their play time.
Pupil Voice:
The OPAL play leads collected pupil voice this term by gathering evidence about the equipment. The following questions were asked:
- - What equipment did children most enjoy playing with?
- - What equipment did children least enjoy playing with?
- - What equipment would children like to have more of?
The OPAL team will use this evidence to guide future OPAL provisions.
Grounds Meeting:
This month, we met with our OPAL mentor Libby Trustcott to look at our grounds. We explored potential play opportunities for the school and used this meeting to map out future projects for the upcoming year. This has filled the OPAL play team with a great deal of excitement! More information of future developments will follow in the upcoming term.
Donations:
In preparation for new developments, we are looking to collect the following items:
Small World Items:
- - Farm animals
- - Dinosaurs
- - Transportation toys
- - Water play toys
Large Items:
We would appreciate any donations of these items. All donations can be placed in our OPAL donations bin outside of the office or given to Mr Dicks (site manager).
September 2024Introducing our OPAL play team for this year!
|
OPAL LEAD |
Miss Pope |
|
Play Coordinator |
Miss Kosinska |
|
Governor |
Miss Fitzgerald |
|
Parent |
Ms Shaker |
|
Parent |
Ms Brunori |
|
Play Leaders |
Mrs Taj, Mrs Bala, Mrs Ahmed, Mrs Wylie, Mrs Dounavis, Mrs Begum, Mrs Azad, Mrs Mittra, Miss O’Grady & Mrs Prior. |
Pupil Play Leaders
This term we have selected Play Leaders in every class.
The Play Leader role will:
- Monitor and test OPAL equipment
- Help report pupil voice to the OPAL team
- Be role models on the playground
Well done to all pupils selected!
|
3C |
Julia |
|
3Y |
Taskeen |
|
4G |
Abdul |
|
4A |
Saad |
|
5W |
Yasmin |
|
5P |
Affan |
|
6C |
Abeera |
|
6R |
Muhammad Ayaan |
New OPAL Equipment
The new school year started with excitement and happy faces all around! A wide variety of new equipment and play resources were added to our playtime. The children enjoyed practising their balancing, construction and programming skills each day
The new items were introduced and risk assessed with the children in our first assembly of the year. We discussed what we mean by reducing the risk:
- using equipment in a safe space
- using equipment in a safe manner
- reporting equipment that is broken or faulty.
OPAL HAS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED !
It was bubbles, balloons and smiles for last Wednesday's OPAL lift off! Ms Batliwala cut the ribbon to unveil our fun-filled OPAL shed and kick-off the beginning of a new era for Chater Junior School.
Our play team and prefects worked hard to ensure that all pupils were able to access everything that was on offer .Everywhere we looked there were smiles on faces. There were scooters, tyres ,dress-up and mud-soup served by mud-chefs in our special mud-kitchen !
/i/video/IMG_0191__1_.mov
April 2024
The OPAL Shed
A huge thank you to our wonderful site manager, Mr Dicks, for building our wonderful new storage unit for the OPAL equipment.
Pupil Play Leaders
At the beginning of summer term, we will be selecting Play Leaders in every class.
The Play Leader role will:
Monitor and test OPAL equipment
Help report pupil voice to the OPAL team
Be role models on the playground.
March 2024
Parent information session:
Chater parents attended an information session, along with our school governors, about how OPAL will run across the school. Ms Batliwala informed parents and governors about the reasons Chater has adopted the OPAL programme and how it will benefit pupils. Further information was sent to all parents on SeeSaw.
Parent Voice Survey:
We collected parents’ views through our OPAL parent survey. The OPAL team will use this survey to design and shape future OPAL provision. Another survey will go to parents at the end of this year.
Here are some of the questions and responses:
Assemblies
Ms Batliwala and Miss Pope led two assemblies this month, all about pupils making choices to manage risk. We looked at a number of pieces of play equipment we currently use on the playground - how we use them, what the rules are, what makes items risky and what are the benefits of using them!
Pupils decided that the equipment itself is not dangerous - we make it dangerous by the way in which we sometimes use it. We discussed what we mean by reducing the risk:
using equipment in a safe space
using equipment in a safe manner
reporting equipment that is broken or faulty.
February 2024
All staff attended a training session led by our OPAL mentor Neil. It was a very inspirational evening!
Ms Batliwala and Miss Pope have started to develop a mud kitchen/ digging area behind the climbing frame. Thank you to the generous donations from parents for providing pots and pans, and a huge thank you to Mr Batliwala for his help building these mini kitchen units!
January 2024
Ms Batliwala led the first OPAL assembly. The OPAL team met for their first development meeting. We discussed some quick 'playtime' wins. Ms Batliwala and Miss Pope were happy to share the news that the school have started to work towards building a fantastic loose part storage, which is due to arrive in the Spring Term! Plans for a large mud kitchen area were also discussed!
December 2023
Our OPAL display is in our school hall. This includes a mapped out vision of our new OPAL playground, pupil’s views on what their ‘dream’ playtime would be, and a list of our desired donations.
November 2023
Introducing our OPAL play team!
|
OPAL LEAD |
Ms Batliwala |
|
Play Coordinator |
Miss Pope |
|
Governor |
Miss Fitgerald |
|
Parent |
Ms Shaker |
|
Parent |
Ms Brunori |
|
Play Leaders |
Mrs Taj, Mrs Bala, Mrs Ahmed, Mrs Wylie, Mrs Konsinska, Mrs Begum, Miss Shah, Mrs Azad, Mrs Mittra, Miss O’Grady & Mrs Prior. |
September 2023
The OPAL team met with Neil Coleman to go through the OPAL audit for the first time. Our Baseline score was 49% (Most schools score between 30% and 40% at baseline.) Neil said that our site had lots of potential and that there was a strong offering already in place. We just need a little more variety, all year round!
