Blessed Mother Teresa's are excited to announce they are now working in partnership with The Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) Primary Programme to improve our school playground offering. 

The OPAL approach to play and lunchtimes is to create a rich play environment using a wide variety of open-ended equipment, resources and outdoor spaces to enrich and promote imagination in every child.

The Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) Primary Programme is the result of over 20 years of testing and development in over 800 schools and is based on the idea that, as well as learning through good teaching, children also learn when they play. As 20% of their time in school is playtime, we want to make sure that this amount of time (equivalent to 1.4 years of primary school) is as good as possible.

Just some benifits we hope to see as we embed this programme at our school 

• More physical activity 
• Developing life skills:
  • resilience
  • risk management
  • improved decision making
  • social skills
  • team building
  • negotiation
• Improved mental health and well-being
• Improved behaviour
• Less accidents and incidents
• More inclusive; no child is bored or left out
• Increased learning time as children are settled and ready to learn after play times.