Accrington Woodnook Primary School

Woodnook is an OPAL School

O- Outdoor

P- Play

A- And

L- Learning

Meet our OPAL Play Team!

Headteacher- Mrs MacMahon

Curricular Lead for Play- Miss Del Mar

Co-ordinators for Play- Miss Dickinson and Uzma

Play Workers- Miss Ali, Mr Salim, Assia, Shelley, Michele, Rob and Shaz

OPAL support team- Mrs Nightingale, Miss Crilly and Mr Smith

Governor for Play- David Smith

We have lots of new and exciting developments coming which provides many play offers for our children at Woodnook including brand new zones of play for all children to access.

Take a look at our gallery of photographs:

What is OPAL?

Our Playground is going through some very exciting changes at the moment which are enabling the children to not only enjoy playtime a lot more but also continue to learn to improve opportunities for physical activity, socialisation, co-operation, coordination, resilience, creativity, imagination and enjoyment through improved play.

 We are working closely with OPAL to ensure that the changes we are making are risk assessed, purposeful and sustainable. 

It is based on the idea that as well as learning through good teaching, your children also learn when they play, and 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.

Woodnook Climbing Wall!

A new challenging zone for the children at Woodnook including a corner obstacle! 

This is going to be amazing for problem solving, gross motor skills, strength and logistical thinking. 

New zone alert!!!!!

Look at this amazing adventurous zone 'The Floor is Lava' that Play Worker Shelley designed and created.

A huge thank you Shelley!  

Look at our new water zone! Built and created by Mr Smith using recycled materials. The children absolutely love it! Waterproofs and wellies at the ready!

Our Nature zone has been a huge hit with the children and a great place for relaxing, building dens, playing the log drums, exploring the natural loose parts in the tyres and much more.

The slide Mr Smith built has been a great addition to our playgrounds which offers children another physical zone.

Climbing, balancing, sliding, swinging and sharing. 

Please click here to read the Play England's charter for Children's play. 

Please click here to read our school's play charter which the children discussed and wrote together as a whole school. 

How can parents/carers help?

Play is not messing about but is the process that enables children to learn all of the things that cannot be taught, while also feeling like it is fun. There are certain things children must have in order to be able to play. These include:

Having clothes that you can play in

Having things to play with

Having a certain amount of freedom

As the school improves play opportunities for your children, you may find the school is asking you for resources and is making changes about how the children use the school grounds. They may use more of the grounds, for more of the year. Your children may get a bit messier, be exposed to more challenges and have greater freedoms to play where, with whom and how they like. The experiences the school is fostering are essential for children’s physical and mental well-being and health and in line with all current good practice advice on health and safety, well-being and development.

Outdoor Playtime Kit

Woodnook Primary School believe that playtime is extremely valuable and children will be encouraged to play outside in all weathers.

We encourage children to bring an outdoor playtime kit this should include:

Waterproof trousers

Waterproof coat

Wellies

During colder times, a hat, gloves and scarf would also be beneficial

Another amazing build by Mr Smith...... we have our very own stage big enough to fit a whole class!

We cannot wait to see what dances, songs and performances the children come up with :-)

How does it work at Woodnook?

All children in the school (from Reception to Year 6) have the freedom to play where they choose within the school grounds (outside)

 A variety of zones, stations, equipment, activities and areas will be available to the children and these may vary each day depending on what the children choose to do

 Playworkers are present in each zone and the closeness of supervision is dependent on the level of risk the child/ren are engaged in.

Over time, we are committed to developing our grounds to meet the needs of all of the many different play types that children have:

Please click here to read our Woodnook play policy. 

Please click here to view our playground zone areas. 

Please click here to read the power of playtime document. 

Please click here to read the case for play in schools.  

Please click here to read our PE policy. 

Please click here to read our school uniform policy.

Some of the Year 6 children were busy painting tyres and planting over 100 flowers and plants to add a touch of colour, beauty and nature to our playgrounds.

Thank you Mrs Nightingale and Mrs Strutz for your time helping :-)

Parent's and carer's Stay and Play

Have a look at our photographs from our parent's and carer's stay and play. We had so much fun showing our parents and carers all the zones on our playground :-)

Meet our Play Detectives and Play Games Leaders

Scooter zone

We regularly change the shape and size of the zone with the help from the children.

Miss Dickinson has created a reflection zone at Woodnook where children can relax and listen to the wind chimes, smell the herbs growing, sit under the tepee and have a calm space to go to. 

More pictures to follow once this zone is completed :-)

During Summer Term 2 we had a home competition for everyone in school. 

Create your own bug house for our playgrounds. 

Thank you to all families who took the time to make wonderful bug houses for mini beasts.

Try and spot them on our playgrounds! 

We have our own wormery at Woodnook! 

The Woodnook Worms! 

Each class have discussed how to look after our worms, what to feed them and foods to avoid and interesting facts about worms. 

More pictures to follow once our worms have settled into their new wormery in the garden zone. 

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped collect, donate and provide our school with resources and equipment to make it possible to provide engaging, fun and inspiring zones on our playgrounds. 

From parents, businesses, staff and to children creating and donating...... you all help towards providing play offer at Woodnook.

Thank you!!!!!  

Our play workers are always on the look out for children who deserve a 'Proud of you ticket' 

Have a look at what our children receive tickets for :-) 

We love our job!!

Team OPAL