School focus: St Thomas of Canterbury

Whether they’re climbing a tree or building a den, it is hoped the challenging play will help them become more creative, resilient and adaptable children who will be keen to accept the challenge of new experiences.

It’s an idea that originated through OPAL (Outdoor Play And Learning), an award-winning play development programme which aims to support an entire cultural and practical transformation of the way that play is thought about, planned for, resourced and staffed in schools.

St Thomas of Canterbury, a Catholic Voluntary Academy in Meadowhead, signed up to the programme in April and, despite it only being in place for a few months, staff have already noticed a huge improvement in the children’s behaviour both inside and out of the classroom.

Liam Colclough, headteacher of St Thomas of Canterbury School, said: “We started OPAL because we wanted to give the same quality to the children outside of lessons as they get inside them.

“Because they spend 20 per cent of their time in school playing we wanted to raise expectations around what children can experience during lunch times and play times.”

Play is recognised as a human right for children and young people under article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As such the programme, which takes place over an 18 month period, aims to bring about a sustainable and beneficial change to maximise the value of play within schools.

“We have high expectations academically but in terms of what they’d experience at play time and lunch time,” Mr Colclough added. “Because of what we know from research, which says it is such an important time for the kids, we want them to experience the very best quality play they can.

“We’ve noticed children are doing more things at lunch time with different groups of children; they’re coming in a lot calmer; they’re talking about their lunch times; the number of arguments has gone down and the number of children actively mixing with other year groups has gone up dramatically.”

The school, which is the first in Sheffield to have signed up for the scheme, has introduced ‘loose parts’ into the playground such as tyres, crates, pallets and wheeled items to allow the children to explore and structure their own play.

Much of the equipment has been donated and it is hoped that scooters and bikes can soon be introduced to play time with the help from the Friends of St Thomas, a registered charity organisation run by parents and teachers from St Thomas of Canterbury.

Chris Sutton, play leader for OPAL at St Thomas of Canterbury, said: “There was a huge focus on football as being the activity to do, whereas now those children that would want to be playing football at lunch times will go off and do other things and really enjoy that.”

Mr Colclough said: “It’s about teaching the children to take risks. We talk to them about what it means to play in a risky way, but also understand risk. Obviously it is still very safe and is still structured in terms of the equipment in the playground and they’re supervised but we want them to experience risky play. We want them to get muddy, climb trees, play with different equipment and be creative.”

Mr Sutton added: “It’s about them assessing the risk and benefits. We hold assemblies for the OPAL lunch time and when we introduce new equipment we have that assembly to talk about what risks there are, what benefits there are and what they can do with that item and what would make it safe play as well as allowing them that chance to experiment with it.”

As part of the school improvement plan, St Thomas of Canterbury is striving towards OPAL silver award level, before gaining gold and platinum.

Once gained the awards certification last for three years, after which the school will take part in an audit with a mentor who will discuss and record the next steps to form a renewed action plan.

School governor Cathal Farragher, who is supporting OPAL within St Thomas of Canterbury, said: “Our children will spend 20% of their school lives at play. We know that better quality play leads to happier, more fulfilled children and happier staff.

“The introduction of the OPAL project has allowed the school to offer a richer and broader range of play experiences which will support the children in achieving an all day long learning experience while allowing them to have some good old fashioned fun along the way.

“Our school is blessed to have at its disposal such a wonderful outdoor resource which we encourage our children to value. The introduction of the OPAL project encourages our children to use this space while being more creative, co-operative and innovative in their play and we fully support Mr. Colclough and his team in this initiative.”