OPAL Risk Benefit Assessments

What is a Risk Benefit Assessment?

An OPAL Risk Benefit Assessment (RBA for short) is a structured way of looking at children’s play activities by weighing:

• The benefits to children (learning, development, wellbeing)

• The real risks (not hypothetical or zero‑risk thinking)

• What is reasonably needed to manage those risks, without removing valuable play

It deliberately moves schools away from traditional risk‑avoidance and towards risk management for learning. OPAL RBA's are underpinned by the Playwork Principles and align with:

• OFSTED’s recognition of risk as part of learning

• HSE guidance that children should not be "wrapped in cotton wool."

Key Principles behind RBA's

OPAL RBAs are driven by beliefs such as:

• Children need challenge and risk to develop

• Managing risk is a life skill

• Injuries are not the same as negligence

• Staff judgement matters

• Play is most valuable when it is freely chosen and personally directed

This is why OPAL schools often have fewer rules, but clearer expectations.

Please find our RBA's available for download at the bottom of this page.