"The harder you work for something, the greater you'll feel when you achieve it."

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And were off ...

After a hard ten weeks finishing our final school placements, we were all very excited to head over to the school today to start bringing our ideas to life. Before we got started we headed over to a local garden centre in Chichester, to use some of the extremely generous donations we received, to buy some tools and resources to help us in becoming landscape gardeners. Although we felt out of our depth looking through all the aisle, we finally got ourselves kited out with some spades, shovels, gloves, watering can and tarpaulin.

After a quick lunch break, armed with our tools, wellington boots and coats, we headed into school and began mapping out the area using the measurements we had decided on in the planning stages. Using string and pegs we marked out the different areas and were very pleased to see that all our ideas would fit into the space available.

However, when looking at the space and time available we did have to think about some of our ideas and if they were achievable in the time we had left. After a lot of deliberation, it was decided that circle benches would be sourced instead of cable reels for tables in the outdoor classroom. We decided on this as the delivery time on the cable reels was a lot longer than anticipated. It also meant that we would have to sand and treat the wood to ensure it was safe and protected from outdoor elements. The cable reels also had a much higher price tag and we want to use our donations wisely, so feel the round benches would serve the same purpose but would be more cost and time effective. We have also decided to put the tepee in the far-left hand corner instead of the right. This was decided due to the ground being very boggy and damp from the river situated behind the field. We felt that if the tepee was placed there then there would be a bigger risk of it falling or sliding due to the foundations it would be sat on.

After these decisions were made we put on our gloves, armed ourselves with a shovel and began levelling out the ground for the allotment. Once this was done, we covered the levelled area in weed control sheets to ensure no weeds would sprout through once the barked had been placed on top. Tarpaulin has now been placed over the top in the hope that there will be now rain tonight so we can continue working hard tomorrow.

Tomorrow we plan to do the same to the outdoor area to ensure the ground is level and covered before the bark is placed over the two areas. We were very pleased with our efforts today and shocked with how much we achieved in only a couple of hours. We hope to continue this positive attitude and momentum throughout the week to bring our ideas to life to create a perfect outdoor space for the children at the school.