In January 2024, our school proudly joined OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) and started our very exciting journey to improve our outdoor play for all of our children. 

OPAL is an award-winning, mentor supported programme that is supporting us to improve the quality of our play opportunities. OPAL is the only programme of its kind that has been independently proven to sustainably improve the quality of play in British primary schools.

With 20% (1.4 years) of a child's primary school life outdoors, it is an important part of the day which also helps children learn and develop. 

Working as a whole school community, our aim is for every child to have amazing playtimes.

At Hampton Primary School, we believe that play is a vital part of our children’s day where our nurturing and caring environment, which enables our children to relate to the world around them, helps them to feel valued, included and secure, and supports their physical, social, emotional and cultural development.

Play at Hampton provides our children with the opportunity to develop life-long skills such as resilience, independence and risk management. Play is a vital way for children to relate to the world around them and it enables them to exercise their natural curiosity.

Play is child-initiated, so it allows children to independently make choices, solve problems, overcome challenges and learn through trial and error. Trusting children to play independently and responsibly develops their confidence, self-identity, resilience and sense of agency – all of which are vital learning and life skills which can be transferred back into the classroom. For this reason, we invest a lot of time and energy in ensuring our pupils at Hampton have enriching and well-resourced play experiences.

Through play, children learn the power of communication – how to negotiate, take turns and how to compromise. Play also offers opportunities to develop children’s imagination and boosts creativity – children re-imagine the world and objects around them in a multitude of ways and they use role-play to explore and enjoy different identities as well as developing their own.

Our play policy details how our playtimes are run and shares the benefits of play for our amazing children here at Hampton.