The doors to St James CofE Primary school's brand new building opened in 2018, with the outdoor spaces presenting a blank canvas to be developed for the benefit of the pupils. The Friends of St James have been working hard over the last few years to develop the outdoor spaces to provide an engaging environment for outdoor learning and good quality play times. During 2021/2 we created a gardening area with raised beds, a willow dome, and the creation of a forest school area.

Following consultation with parents, pupils and school leadership, it was decided that a trim trail style adventure playground would be a much needed addition to the current provision, encouraging good quality active playtimes and also being an additional resource for PE lessons. As such, the Friends of St James are raising funds for the purchase and installation of a challenging adventure playground that can be used for both purposes. It will primarily be designed to meet the needs and abilities of KS2 children, but will be available to all pupils.

We have engaged three different play equipment specialist companies who have presented us with designs and quotes, and have discussed the proposed designs with the school council (made up of pupil representatives from each class) to help us arrive on a final desired design.

We are aiming to have the play equipment installed during summer 2023 so that this will give our current eldest class two years worth of use.

We are starting this campaign with £5000 allocated from FOSJ funds which has been raised for this project over the last two years. We are running various events to fundraise towards our target as well as seeking donations and applying for grant funding. Any donations towards our target will be gratefully received, and we welcome anyone wanting to run a fundraising event to help towards our target.

The realisation of this project will be a huge milestone for FOSJ and will be a significant positive addition to the facilities available to the pupils of St James.

Our offline donations are made up of: £5,000 from FOSJ funds raised through previous events; £69 raised by selling personalised Christmas cards Dec 22; £200 from Roundtable for helping with their Santa sleigh event Dec 22; £1500 donation from Barratts Homes -Exeter branch; £104 raised via Bag2School Dec collection; £938 raised via Feb bingo and raffle; £100 West Devon Borough Council; £249 raised via Mother's Day cupcake sale; £50 Okehampton Inner Wheel; £500 Okehampton Lions Club; £500 Lloyds Bank; £2500 Norman Family Trust; £201 raised via Easter afterschool sale; £85 raised via April car boot sale; £182 raised via Easter Trail; £705 raised via Easter bingo and raffle; £35 via Easter quiz; £190 via Bag2School May collection; £100 donation; £225 via Chris Goodman photo shoots; £1000 donation from Persimmon Homes; £500 grant from Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council; £84 father's day brownies sale; £500 Rotary Club of Okehampton; £181 collection pot at Costcutter; £500 Lloyds Bank; £354 raised via sale of tea towels; £1305 raised via summer fair; £49 raised via ice cream sale; £417 Gilbert Stephens; £250 Ladram Bay holiday raffle; £500 donation from Howdens.