Current schools: OPAL school visit - Healdswood Infant and Nursery School

Current schools: OPAL school visit - Healdswood Infant and Nursery School

Play makes up 20% of children's primary school life. See how this OPAL school is making playtime a key part of their day.

By OPAL Outdoor Play and Learning CIC

Date and time

Tue, 8 Jul 2025 11:00 - 13:00 GMT+1

Location

Healdswood Infant and Nursery School

Barker Avenue Sutton-in-Ashfield NG17 3FQ United Kingdom

About this event

  • Event lasts 2 hours

Play makes up 20% of children's primary school life. How do schools plan for this 20%? What are the roles of the play team?

How do we develop our best teams? How can playtime support us to foster our school's values in all our children - resilience, courage, tenacity, kindness? How do children get their playthings out and put them away? What are the solutions to foxes and sandpits?

See for yourself what an amazing playtime looks like at Healdswood Infant and Nursery School.

Agenda

11am OPAL school networking

Discuss your journey with other OPAL school colleagues - share your successes, top tips and ways to overcome some of the challenges.

12pm-1pm Observation of playtime

Come see a platinum OPAL playtime in action - ask the children about how they manage risk and the grown-ups about the changes they have seen.

About Healdswood Infant and Nursery School

Healdswood is an infant and nursery school that has made excellent progress on their OPAL journey. They have a wonderful site that the team has developed into an interesting play space for the children. They have used contacts within the community to help with building a sandpit and have a caravan on site! The school began their OPAL journey in September 2023 and is keen to share their journey with you.

Additional information

We will be indoors and outdoors; please come dressed whatever the weather. OPAL schools play outdoors in all weathers.

The school will provide tea and coffee.

Car parking is available next to the school or on adjacent roads.

Only two tickets per school. If you can no longer come, please let us know so we can release your place to another school.

Organised by

The OPAL Primary Programme is the premier award winning programme helping schools to make every playtime amazing for every child.

The programme was developed by Michael Follett, a former school improvement adviser and teacher who has spent the past 23 years specialising in creating this programme to support school improvement through better play.  The OPAL programme has been delivered to around 1000 schools in the UK and is rapidly expanding in Canada, SE Asia and all across Europe. There are 22 mentors delivering the programme, and you can get in touch to request a free introduction session via the website.

Find out more: http://outdoorplayandlearning.org.uk