Pentagon Play’s Playground Equipment in Essex

Pentagon Play are the trusted provider amongst schools and nurseries across the United Kingdom. As a nationwide company, who has worked with over 3,000 settings to date, we thought we’d summarise some of our most recent, biggest projects around Essex!

Across Essex, we have worked with over 75 primary schools and nursery settings to enhance their outdoor play area and improve their children’s educational play experience.

From healthy daily mile tracks and MUGA’s to amazing climbing frames, we have installed it all in Essex.

Our dedicated, outdoor learning enthusiast, Luke Banner, is Essex’s fabulous playground consultant. He is thoroughly passionate about the projects he manages, to improve children’s educational play experience.

5 Fantastic Playground Projects In Essex

A Dedicated Space For Sporting Activities At John Bunyan Primary School, Braintree

Working closely with John Bunyan Primary School, located in Braintree, we have enhanced the sporting curriculum through the creation of an excellent Multi Use Games Area!

Due to the weather, the field was out of action for the majority of the school year, meaning the children couldn’t always practise sports outdoors.

So Luke worked with the growing primary school to install an inspiring, aesthetically pleasing MUGA Pitch: meeting both the requirements set out and the budget set aside for the project.

The MUGA is a 26m x 16m Pitch that has been surfaced in our green multi-sport surfacing, which provides the children with an all-weather space to use during lunchtime and playtime.

As well as encouraging and enabling playtime games, the Multi Use Games Area is also a devoted zone where sports and PE lessons can take place without the weather preventing play.

Through the installation of the magnificent sporting facility, the children are able to improve a vast range of physical skills and development.

Fundamental movement skills, cardiovascular fitness and upper and lower body strength can be targeted through multiple sporting and game opportunities throughout the day!

You can read more about this fantastic sporting space here.

An Energising Climbing Frame For Manor Junior School, Barking

To combat sedentary playtimes and lunchtimes, Manor Junior School, located in Barking, desired an exciting playground challenge to enhance their outdoor area, inspire their children to get active and become more involved in their own fitness and wellbeing.

Luke suggested our fabulous Grizedale Forest Circuit, which is an inviting climbing frame that sparks children’s enthusiasm and imaginations as they tackle the dozens of challenges featured within the frame.

The enormous climbing frame has truly extended the physical play opportunities at the school as the children climb, step, balance and swing through the obstacles. This is improving their climbing confidence, overall body strength, communication, language and teamwork skills.

The needs of the school have definitely been met as inactive playtimes are now a thing of the past!

Victoria Holder, Manor Junior School’s Well-Being Development Team Leader, had this to say about the development:

“66% of teachers have found that there have been less behavioural issues on the playground and 80% of staff noticed that the children were engaging positively during playtime”

Read more about this exciting playground development here.

Promoting Daily Exercise In Each Of The 5 Schools In BMAT Academy Trust

We were contacted by the BMAT Academy Trust, located in Harlow, Essex, as they wanted to help kick start the Daily Mile initiative in each of the primary schools within the trust.

Luke worked closely with the growing academy trust to design an excellent daily mile track for each of the schools, ensuring the children could make full use of their new active play resource at playtimes, lunchtimes and during lessons, too! 

Each of the 5 primary schools, located in different parts of the county, have a unique Daily Mile Track, so that new two are the same. Crafted from Thermoplastic Playground Markings, Luke was able to design a distinctive track for each school, providing active challenges along the run and enhancing imaginative play.

The primary schools, within BMAT Academy Trust, we helped kick start the initiative at include:

• Cooks Spinney Primary Academy, Harlow
• Freshwaters Primary Academy, Harlow
• Little Pardon Primary Academy, Harlow
• Magna Carta Primary Academy, Stansted Mountfitchet
• Roydon Primary Academy, Roydon

Through participating in the daily mile each school day, the children’s fitness, stamina levels and cardiovascular fitness is improved, combating childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles.

Additionally, the children are also learning what it takes to lead a healthy lifestyle.

View the Daily Mile Tracks installed for each primary school in the BMAT Academy Trust in more detail here.

Targeting The KS1 Curriculum Outdoors At Myland Community Primary School, Colchester

In collaboration with Myland Community Primary School, located in Colchester, Essex, Luke has revitalised their Key Stage One playground, targeting the KS1 curriculum through the installation of stimulating, active and imaginative playground equipment.

Luke designed a space that would provide more physical play opportunities, active challenges and inspire imaginative play by installing a bespoke Trim Trail, Play Ship and School Playground Surfacing.

Our Play Ship is a creative, interactive learning resource that has provided the children with more than just a boat to play on. The open-ended facility can be transformed into a ship, a spooky island or even a cosy den using the unique den making posts disguised as the ship’s mast!

The bespoke Trim Trail runs alongside the imaginative space and is a fantastic combination of equipment that is perfect for physical development. The variety of apparatus really challenges the children’s balance, co-ordination and core stability as they hold on tight, traversing across the moving logs of the wibbly wobbly bridge.

Children can also improve other key physical skills such as their balance, climbing confidence, co-ordination, upper and lower body strength and fine and gross motor skills as they cling onto the rope ladder, which spans across two posts creating the Net Traverse.

The children can make full use of the bright and inviting outdoor learning and play area no matter what the weather may bring since the Artificial Grass  allows water to penetrate through the surface without bringing slippery, messy mud.

Read more about this inspiring playground development here.

Stimulating EYFS Playground Equipment at East Bergholt Church of England Primary School, Colchester

To support the characteristics of effective outdoor learning, we installed a stimulating selection of early years outdoor play equipment at East Bergholt Church of England Primary School, situated in Colchester, Essex.

As the school wanted to promote cross-curricular play, we installed a wide range of Imaginative and Creative Playground Equipment.

Our market-leading Mud Kitchen has been a fantastic addition to the outdoor area as the children relish making mud pies, soil cakes and mud cubes; mixing, measuring, pouring, playing with recipes and exploring textures and generally getting their hands dirty!

Situated along with our Sand and Water Tables creates an excellent exploratory area where the children can develop and enhance their communication, language, teamwork and fine motor skills through play. The EYFS children have also been investigating capacity and mathematical terms as they use various objects in the outdoor space - a fantastic outdoor mathematical resource.

In addition to the wonderful messy play equipment, we also installed our bright and bold Moveable Artificial Grass Topped Seats to ensure there is always somewhere comfortable to sit to share a story, discuss the day or simply socialise.

The children love sitting on the creative seats when it’s time to enjoy outdoor story time!

Reception Teacher, Emily Carr, had this to say:

“The process was very easy and hassle free. Pentagon was very helpful in advising us about the different equipment and what would work for our setting. We LOVE our new equipment and it has had such a positive impact on the children’s learning and wellbeing. Thank you, Pentagon.”

Read more about this wonderful outdoor play and learning project, and the rest of the fantastic EYFS playground Equipment we installed here.

We have worked with many primary schools and nurseries across Essex! If you’re an Essex primary school or nursery setting who is looking to re-develop their outdoor learning environment, please Contact Us.