Laleham C of E Primary School

“Excellent communication and great to work with. Fabulous equipment.” T. Church – Parent and PTA member

Why was the area redeveloped?
The PTA wanted to create a new play environment for the children on the school field. They worked hard to raise money and applied for match funding from local companies to achieve their goal. The new equipment was also to be named in commemoration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

How we transformed the play area to provide outdoor learning opportunities for the children:
A large open space on the school field just next to the existing ‘Millennium Trail’ with a few trees dotted about was the perfect site for our natural timber Adventure Trail. The designers created a 5 unit trail mixing high and low level units; they linked it to the existing trail to increase the play value for all the ages of children who would be using it. Our installation team began the installation in the June Half Term holidays, being the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee we had three days to work with so time was tight! By the following week all the units were firmly in place and fully surfaced with brand new Softmulch Safety Surfacing to keep the natural appearance of the grass.

How the children will benefit from the new play area:
The new ‘Jubilee’ Trail offers all ages of children within the school a chance to challenge themselves by climbing, balancing and traversing. Linking the new Adventure Trail to the existing one gives the children many different start and finish points so no journey across will be the same. When faced with the choice of continuing along the existing trail or branching off to tackle the new high level units they will be able to evaluate their own sense of risk. Once on the Up & Over, Monkey Bars and Overhead Trapeze upper and lower body strength will be needed to cross and each unit offers its own way to encourage physical activity. Overall the trail will help to improve the health and well-being of every one of its little adventurers.

Within minutes of taking the Health and Safety barrier away the new trail was swamped with a large group of children some units had up to 5 kids on at once! It was great for us to witness the children’s excitement and it shows the popularity of our Adventure Trail.