CHILDREN are being encouraged to get a bit muddier during break time as part of a scheme aimed at improving outdoor play.

Brandon Primary School has been taking part in the Opal primary play programme – aimed at giving children the opportunity to play freely – for the last 18 months and has just been given a gold award.

They have also just been given £1,000 by the Greggs Foundation to plant wildflowers and build a new climbing frame.

The scheme is aimed at helping children to play, with pupils encouraged to build dens, play in sandpits and cook in the mud kitchen.

Headteacher Judith Hodgson said: “It’s been a huge change in the way the children play.

“There’s a lot more mud – they go out every day of the year and use the field rather than having to stay on the playground when it’s wet.

“The children love it and wouldn’t be without it.”

Ingrid Wilkinson, schools play advisor for the North-East, said: “Children maybe a little dirtier than they were before Opal but children learn through their play and parents at Brandon appreciate the importance of fun at lunchtimes which inevitably now means dens, mud and challenge.”