Teacher’s pride as Wellingborough infant school is handed award for improving quality of playtimes
The Avenue Infant School in Wellingborough has been awarded a platinum prize from Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) in recognition of its efforts to make playtimes more productive.
Headteacher of the Wellinborough infant school, Helen Morrall, was pleased that the school received the award which she believes has shown that it has helped support children socially, emotionally and intellectually.
She said: "We’re super proud of it, it was a lot of hard work.
“The children are very much in control of what they do and what they choose, but it’s also about looking at opportunities that are available to the children and enhancing them.
"It’s about developing the children’s own personal challenge and risk-taking, the children learn to make those decisions to make them safe. The children know they have a responsibility to look after themselves and each other.
"It’s about having an action plan and building up, we didn’t start with all of this right away, it took time.
"It’s huge, if the children are frustrated on the playground and have nothing to do there can be injuries and arguments, whereas now there’s such a richness of what they can choose from, their communication skills and problem solving has massively improves, which then transfers into the classroom."
The Avenue Infant took measures, including extending morning play to help make playtimes more meaningful and give children the resources to be creative in the playground.
The platinum award is the highest level of the OPAL outdoor play programme, and recognises the positive steps the school has made to ensure playtimes are not only engaging, but productive when students head back into the classroom.
OPAL’s programme is a four-step process where schools create an action plan to help improve the nature of playtime and are allocated a mentor to help support the school during an 18 to 24-month period.
Then, an audit is carried out which covers 18 ‘critical cultural and environmental conditions which affect the quality of children’s play’, which plays a key role in determining the outcome of the award, with schools being handed bronze, silver, gold and platinum accolades.