Colinton Primary School is a small, friendly neighbourhood school in the south west of Edinburgh. Although it is not officially an ‘army school’, Colinton Primary’s catchment takes in a number of pupils whose families are attached to Dreghorn and Redford Barracks and currently 89% of pupils are children of army service personnel. They come from all over the UK as well as many parts of the world including Fiji, Nepal, Cyprus and Germany.
It was hoped that by giving the children a variety of learning opportunities to develop and use an outdoor learning environment, they would be encouraged to value and care for their world, foster personal responsibility for learning, independent thinking and enterprising attitudes.
In 2007 the school was awarded a piece of land by Edinburgh City Council to develop into a community space and at this stage Leanne Sharpe, Deputy Head, applied to the BBC’s Beechgrove Garden hoping to be selected as a Community Garden. Mrs Sharpe also gave all the pupils from nursery to p7 a challenge to design their ultimate garden and using their ideas the design was finalised by parent and designer Nikki Morgan.
At the start of 2009 the school received the news they were waiting for- they had been selected for the Beechgrove Garden, Community Garden show to be aired in September 2009.
The ambitious design would see the creation of a maze, sensory area, amphitheatre and stage, recycle and grow zone, pond and wildlife zone and a play zone. At this stage Mrs Sharpe contacted Jupiter Play looking for natural play equipment to compliment the overall feel of the garden. Having met with Mrs Sharpe and the team at the school, Jo Walton, Managing Director of Jupiter Play, suggested several items of play equipment that would be donated to the project and installed all free of charge.
Jo comments on the project saying ‘We are delighted to be involved in such a worthwhile project and the end result is a garden that the whole school and surrounding community can be proud of.’ Mrs Sharpe added that ‘Jupiter Play very kindly agreed to supply and fit loads of fabulous equipment for the play area for which we are incredibly grateful. The equipment is stunning and the children have already been putting it to good use!’
Although this breathtaking garden will benefit all pupils, there will undoubtedly be particular benefits to the service children especially when they are dealing with the additional anguish of parents deploying on or returning from operations.
