An extension to Winton school created a courtyard area between classrooms that was seen as a great opportunity to take learning outside! They wanted to support many curriculum areas with outdoor facilities fitting a lot into a small space whilst keeping in mind strict health and safety considerations.
The Winton School garden was an incredible success with the area carefully designed to maximise the available space. We were able to include two seating areas for outdoor teaching, an outdoor kitchen complete with sinks and pizza ovens, science facilities including a weather station, a chicken coop and, of course, space for gardening and growing vegetables.
Sustainability and ecology was an important theme with water butts for conserving water and up cycled materials used to create the outdoor furniture.
A quiet area was also incorporated including scented plants and herbs designed to appeal to SEN children.
This project was successfully undertaken to a tight deadline as work had to be completed during the school holidays. Access to the site was quite a challenge as the courtyard space is surrounded by buildings making it difficult to get larger equipment and materials into the site.
We were able to overcome these issues and manage an extensive brief to create a great design for the space that packs a huge number of learning opportunities into this small outdoor area.
Strict Health and Safety regulations and Fire Safety guidelines had to be followed to ensure the new garden learning zone provided a safe environment for pupils and teachers.
The photographs speak for themselves with this project! We were able to create a well laid out environment that offers opportunities for children to do practical experiments, spend more time outside and see real results of their efforts gardening, growing and caring for the environment. It also gives teachers the scope for creative lessons that make learning fun for everyone.
