Hebburn Lakes Primary are proud to be part of the OPAL experience. Play opportunities are available to our children at breaktimes and lunchtimes. We believe that play is fundamental to a child’s health, happiness, development and well being.
The OPAL vision is that “every child in every school has an amazing hour of high quality play every day” and as a school we share this vision and recognise the enormous benefits play has on a child’s life.
We have worked hard to develop the area to ensure all play types are encorporated.
Play types can simply be described as the different behaviours we can see when children are
playing. There have been numerous attempts to categorise different types of play.
This toolkit uses the play types from play theorist Bob Hughes (2006) Play Types –
Speculations and Possibilities in which he explains that ‘each play type is both distinctly and
subtly different from the others’. It is useful to be able to recognise them since ‘engaging in
each one is a necessary corollary for a child’s healthy development’.
Our outdoor areas are continually being developed and offer an even wider range of play opportunities. The children love playing in all the different areas including Wheelie Wednesdays, creating dens, new recipes in the mud kitchen, rowng in the boat, digging in the sand, creating games with small world toys or relaxing in the cosy caravan. They are having fun and are developing life skills of team work, problem solving, communication, resilience whilst also developing their creativity and imagination.
Our OPAL play is a great success and the children love being outside!
