Castaway Camp

You may not know but when I arrived at Milborne St Andrew First School I started Outdoor Education (OE). I would go out with a class for an afternoon. Every group of children were incredible, enthusiastic and we spent the afternoon making dens, pond dipping and exploring the wildlife area. I always felt very privileged to be able to contribute to the children’s learning in a hands on way while out and about.

 

I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say: “Fire is not just warm and comforting, it's completely mesmerizing...”

 

This is why I always wanted to develop our inviting, relaxing outdoor space at Milborne with fire and fire accessories to create more comfort and beauty. So I teamed up with Friends of School (FoS) to create an action plan. The first action on our plan, to construct a fire pit!

 

Step One. Recruitment

Milborne needs you!

From foundation ground work, measuring and marking, to laying out the boundaries, constructing an outdoor classroom from scratch, right up to an entire storage container! When a step is complete you move onto the next one, so it’s certainly a job of variety, where you’ll meet new team mates.

 

 

Samuel Richards created a poster for us to get as many helping hands as possible.

We made the most of our Easter by working together in our croft to build a fire pit.

 

Step Two. Work!

  • Prepping and cleaning the construction areas
  • Digging to level the ground
  • Measuring and marking
  • Delivering and distributing supplies (lots of heavy lifting)
  • Assisting arrival with equipment, of storage
  • Assembling seating
  • Sourcing and securing sleepers

Of course I had the responsibility of overseeing the whole project (no pressure then…)

Wow! What a fantastic job. Lots of parent help enabled us to complete our fire pit over the Easter weekend. This will be a place where we can gather to explore changing materials when the fire is lit and when the fire is not in use, it will be used as an outdoor classroom. A big thank you to all the adults who came in their holiday to lend a hand with a special thank you to Emma Bratley, Caroline and Ed Richards who spent the whole weekend with me. Also Clare and Sawn Pavey who acquired and drove the essential digger and Tricia Padwicke for bringing us some logs and lengths of wood.  We used these to create some seating around our pit.

 

All in all, we’re very pleased with our work, and we really enjoyed toasting marshmallows at the ‘Marvelous May Fair’ opening!