The Outdoor Classroom (OC) was begun in 2007 and is now fully operational.

How we built the Outdoor Classroom

The OC began life as one of a row of tennis courts that bordered the school grounds between us and Mostyn Gardens. The courts fell into disuse many years ago and little by little the school has taken them over. Our long established Wild Area was established in part of the row, as was the recently developed Multisports Court. The Outdoor Classroom occupies the space of one of the courts and completes our takeover.

A team of parents, staff and governors cleared the area in order to provide a base for us to then develop our ideas. We were also very fortunate that one of our parents recommended our project to her office colleagues as a worthwhile community Volunteers Day scheme. Consequently we had a day with staff from her company, parents and governors laying a foundation base for this area.

The school's Eco- Committee then became responsible under the direction of Miss Nicola Walton (the class teacher and Science co-ordinator) for planning the next steps.

We applied for funding from the  ‘Playground Partnership ‘ The scheme provided £2000 of funding for the scheme and provided a good model for our development process.

The Eco-Committee and Miss Walton plus the head teacher met and decided to carry out the work in a 4-week period. Each child chose a particular role and tasks were allocated to them.

Firstly we held an assembly and gained lots of ideas from the children. One of the overarching aims that came out of this meeting was the children's desire for a ‘growing’ area and a quiet sanctuary at playtimes. So many of our children do not have the opportunity to see vegetables growing, that this was seen by staff and parents as a very worthwhile feature of the new area.

Then market researchers carried out a very full survey, seeking the views of all the children, staff and parents. The Friday Flyer bulletin asked for design ideas to be submitted to the design team to consider.

Next designers and market researchers worked together to come up with a design reflecting the most popular and practical ideas – for example a repeated request for a water feature has led to a water over pebbles design.

The team then spoke to a professional surveyor on site who explained about the importance of measuring accurately, site safety and levelling the ground. The team also spoke to a landscape designer who visited the school and showed examples of her designs and talked about her work.

After all this, the designers visited the nearby Dean City Farm garden, which gave them inspiration for their designs and ideas in particular on how we could use our large concrete cylinders for growing vegetables.

Using the OC

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