School needs bags of help for playground

Revamp campaign

West Lothian primary school pupils are urging people to get behind their playground upgrade campaign.

Carmondean Primary in Livingston have applied for part of the £8000 funding awarded by Tesco’s Bags of Help Scheme every month for outdoor projects.

The school’s pro j e c t , Carmondean’s Building A Perfect Playground, will be eligible for either a £ 5000, £ 2000 or £ 1000 reward based on a public vote at Tesco stores.

Avril Tully, principal teacher at Carmondean Primary, said: “Our playground was in quite a sorry state. It was a concrete jungle - empty and uninspiring.”

To make their playground a better environment for their pupils the school have been working with Grounds For Learning Scotland and have already implemented some changes to the outdoor space.

Ms Tully said: “They came out and worked with the children and devised a plan for the kind of things we would like to have.”

The school have introduced more seating area to their playground as well as lifting some of the concrete slabs and planting fruit trees.

A new sandpit has also been built at the school along with an outdoor kitchen.

Ms Tully said: “We’re some way into the project but there’s still a lot more to do. We’ve put in a few times to Tesco but so far have been unsuccessful so this is the first positive feedback we’ve had from them.”

Shoppers can vote for Carmondean Primary’s project in participating Tesco stores until January 28 using a token given to them at the check-out each time they make a purchase.

The winning project will then work alongside Greenspace Scotland and Groundwork to bring their project to completion.