Improving our Outdoor Areas at Westbury Leigh Primary School

Westbury Leigh Primary

At WLPS, we believe that all children should benefit from learning experiences in a wide range of environments. We are lucky to have beautiful and spacious grounds on which we already have a small farm (comprising of Golden Guernsey goats, Peking and Saxony ducks, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs), an outdoor classroom, a sizeable vegetable plot, and the beginnings of a dedicated forest school zone.

Roald Dahl once said: “The more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves.” And we totally agree with him.

At WLPS, we believe that high-quality outdoor learning develops reflective and inquisitive thinking, along with problem-solving approaches in real situations. It encourages holistic development of children, develops self-awareness, resilience and adaptability in adverse circumstances. Our children will develop a love, appreciation and respect for all that is living, by understanding how we can look after our environment. With the use of outdoor learning, both teachers and pupils have reported improvements in not only attainment, skills and motivation, but in their physical and mental well-being too.

We have a vision to improve all of these areas in different ways:

We would like to develop the farm so that it a resource that will benefit the wider community. To do this, we require permanent structures for housing our animals, and a designated water supply. Our ducks would also love a proper pond to swim in!

The outdoor classroom (currently called the Swan’s Nest), is already an outdoor learning area, with benches and a grand story-telling chair, but to enable the children to access outdoor learning all year round, we would like to shelter the space with a canopy that would protect the children from all the elements.

Our vegetable plot, widely used by children all year as part of our curriculum, would benefit from the same designated water supply as the farm, as well as child-appropriate gardening tools.

Our newest venture at WLPS is training a current member of staff to become our dedicated Forest School Leader; she is due to complete training in January 2020. For this to be a great success, we need resources such as tarpaulin, rope, bungee cords, saws and a fire pit for campfire cooking. We would love to be able to build our own outdoor changing and washing area.

Your generous sponsorship will be gratefully acknowledged in January 2020 when we re-launch our outdoor learning environment at WLPS.

Thank you for all your support in developing this very special project at our school.