Visiting the School
- sfytche1
- Sep 20, 2017
- 3 min read
Upon sending our email to the school, we arranged a visit to see the grounds and what space we had to work with. As well as meeting the staff who work within the school.
Prior to the visit, we met as a group to discuss our initial ideas and any questions that we felt were important to ask when visiting the school. We wanted to ensure we had a clear idea of what the school wanted before we went away and planned a design for the outdoor area. We thought of different questions that could also effect this plan, such as finding out the needs of the children and the number of children attending the school. This would affect the design as we wanted to make it accessible to all children within the school. We also wanted to know if the staff had any original ideas and if we would be able to work with the children to help inform our own designs and ideas.
When visiting the school, we were shown around the school grounds and were all impressed with the facilities and opportunities the children have within the school such as cooking their own lunches. We then headed outside to view the area that we would be transforming. The whole group were excited to see the space available to see what changes we could make. When outside we were greeted by a large court area where the children participate in their PE Lessons. There is also a space for the children to play football with two goal nets either end of the small field area. We also saw a small wooden shed that houses the PE equipment. To the left of the shed there is a large tree and to the right an empty grass space. We then asked if the school had any requests for the area, and the only request was for a willow dome to be included somewhere in the area. We also asked about the budget and found that we would need to raise money to fund the project. We are very excited about this aspect and have begun to think of different ways that we can get the community involved to help support the project and the school. We were then left as a group to explore and discuss our ideas.
There was a buzz of excitement as we started to explore the area. We started to think of ideas making sure that we remembered to include a willow dome as this one of the only requests the school had for the area. We thought about including an allotment so the children could grow their own vegetables to use within their cooking lessons and when making their lunches. We also wanted to make a seating area and felt this would work well under the tree, using the branches and leaves as a natural shelter. We also felt it important to remember that the school had children both from primary and secondary schools so the outdoor classroom would have to be suitable for a range of ages. Full of ideas we left the school and decided to make our own individual designs. We are then going to bring these together in our next meeting to decide our overall plan of the outdoor area, which we will share with the staff and children at the school. This will ensure they are happy with the design and will allow us to add anything that the children or staff may want to see in their outdoor area.
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