School chase prize of an outdoor classroom
Calderwood Primary are on the short-list for a building bonanza that could land them a new outdoor classroom.
And they need local support to secure it.
The school were one of over 2000 initial entries in the Jewson’s Building a Better Community Award, and they’ve been named as one of the final 62 candidates.
The Calderwood proposal would see a new outdoor classroom built, which would include a amphitheatre, minibeast area, renewable energy station and wildlife thicket.
Calderwood’s principal teacher Jillian Ring believes the outdoor initiative would provide a huge boost to youngsters learning and help the school be more of a community hub.
She said: “We already have a really ambitious plan for what we can do with the garden, but this extra funding would be a real boost that would get the momentum going.
“We could get a lot further forward over a short time with this funding. It would be something that could benefit the whole community in terms of relationships with local care homes, nurseries and other groups, as well as really helping the pupils at the school.
“We’re hoping that people will get on board and help us develop this even further.”
In their proposal the school lists several benefits to having the outdoor classroom.
These include that it would enable the growing, harvesting and cooking of garden product and help teach about recycling garden waste, as well as letting the children learn about nature and the importance of preserving areas for woodland creatures.
It would help with their learning about the lifecycle of plants and flowers and food chains within the garden ecosystem, and also help educate them about wild flower meadows and the important role of the honey bee and pollination.
The benefits for the wider local community are listed as working on nature and sustainability projects with incoming nursery pupils and further developing relationships with the local care home.
It would also involve local residents in working with senior pupils on several projects, such as spring planting, harvesting, garden story sharing, while the school’s existing partnership and work with Tesco on the Food to Fork Initiative would be developed further by using garden produce to help the children learn business skills to market and sell the produce.
For information on voting for Calderwood then visit /www. buildingbettercommunities. co. uk/ submission/calderwood-communityoutdoor-classroom
We already have a really ambitious plan for what we can do with the garden