Brining Life Back To Play For Balksbury Infant School!

The Customer

Located in the busy market town of Andover, Balksbury Infant School prides itself on delivering an engaging and fascinating curriculum to the local children. With its sister school, Balksbury Junior School, the Balksbury Federation is well-regarded by the local community as a federation who are shaping the next generation into brilliant individuals.

With over 270 students attending the infant school alone, Miss Katy Thompson and her amazing team of staff have created an exciting school environment, with Ofsted even recognising how children "enjoy coming to this welcoming and nurturing community".

Wanting to maintain the positive school environment that they have created, the school started to review all of the current facilities offered by the school. During this review, the infant school noted how their current surfacing (natural grass) was causing the play area to look messy, which was causing children to avoid engaging fully with the area.

Having this pain point, the school was determined to find a more suitable surfacing option that would maintain the natural beauty of the area, whilst providing some extra benefits for the school. With the target established, the school started their search...

Meeting the Customer

Mrs Tara Woodhams, the school business manager at Balksbury Federation, started searching for an established surfacing company that could help with the project. During this search, she quickly came across the Pentagon Play website and saw the numerous 5 star reviews left by other infant schools across England.

Impressed, Tara decided to visit the website and browse our safety surfacing range. As she was browsing through the fantastic surfacing options we offer, she came across our industry-famous Playturf Artificial Grass and felt like this would be the perfect surfacing for the play area.

After submitting a contact form and speaking to Aimie Ashford-Smith, an inhouse play and learning advisor, Tara felt confident that Pentagon was the company to help with the project. Curious about our play equipment, Tara asked if she could read through one of our brochures and see what type of play equipment we offer. Aimie was more than happy to accommodate and sent her a copy of our brochure.

After a couple of weeks, Tara contacted us back and explained how impressed the school was with the brochure and how she and Miss Emily Smith (the EYFS Leader) felt inspired to further improve their play area by adding some of our equipment to it!

Excited to start their journey to improving their playground, both Tara and Emily wanted to book a free site visit and consultation with one of our outdoor learning experts. Donella Felton, an outdoor learning consultant, was more than happier to take on the project and learn more about what Pentagon can do to help Balksbury Infant School improve their play area.

Their Objectives

During the consultation and site visit, both Tara and Emily made it clear that their main focus was removing the current natural grass surfacing and replacing it with our Playturf Artificial Grass. They wanted this new surfacing to not only look great, but provide a safe space for children to engage in play without the risk of a serious injury occurring.

Walking around the playground, the staff told Donella about how they wanted the new play equipment to promote active play in an engaging and exciting way. By promoting active play, the school could help children develop vital physical skills and a positive attitude towards exercise and health.

Near the end of the visit, the school also wondered about incorporating specific zones into the play area to cover additional types of beneficial play. The idea of a music zone and an EYFS zone were mentioned, which would both help with overall child development.

Our Approach

As soon as Donella had everything that she needed, she quickly made her way back to our Bristol office to talk with the relevant departments to get this project underway. Whenever progress was made or a new development occurred, both Tara and Emily were swiftly updated. These constant updates allow our customers to stay in-the-loop with their projects and understand more about the entire process.

Unlike most companies who would stop here, Pentagon Play has always striven to be different and make our customer journey completely unique and enjoyable. Our in-house visualisation team created a variety of bespoke 3D graphics and images for Balksbury Federation to showcase how the finished project would look.

Like most of our customers, Tara and Emily absolutely loved this aspect as it gave them a chance to see their idea brought to life and it gives them both confidence in their choices of equipment.

Whilst Emily and Tara were getting updates and visualisations from Donella and the team, our experienced manufacturing department got to work on gathering the highest quality materials for the project. From the cutting-edge equipment we use to our thorough quality assurance checks, there's plenty of reasons as to why our manufacturing process is seen so highly within our industry.

Even after the project is finished, Tara and Emily's journey with Pentagon Play doesn't have to come to an end. We want to be the one-stop shop for nursery, school and commercial playgrounds across the nation. From offering expert aftercare advice to providing RoSPA recognised playground inspections and maintenance services, you can get all of your playground needs with Pentagon Play.

Playturf Surfacing

Known for its nearly-identical looks to natural grass, Pentagon's Playturf Artificial Grass has become one of the most popular surfacing options for schools across the UK. With it's natural look, Playturf can breathe a fresh new lease of life into any area it's installed on.

Crafted from high quality materials and woven to a professional standard, our Playturf has passed FIFA's rigorous durability tests whilst maintaining it's fantastic looks. Our artificial grass can withstand heavy foot traffic and poor weather conditions with ease, meaning your play area can look fantastic for years to come. Considering how busy the play area can get at play time, the school loved how durable this surfacing option is.

Not only is the surface durable, but it also requires little to no maintenance to maintain it's vibrant looks. Whereas natural turf requires constant lawn care, Playturf can be left to it's own devices for months to come, allowing you to focus your time and money into more important issues.

It doesn't stop there though. Underneath the surfacing, a layer of our dynamic play base work can be found. This base work will prevent weeds from disrupting your surface and help water drain properly, minimising the risk of any serious trips or falls occurring on the playground.

With such a huge surface area to be covered, the school were excited to see how much life the new artificial turf brought to the school and how much time and energy it would save for the groundskeepers.

Musical Zone

Music can play a vital role in a child's development. From helping children learn how to produce certain sounds to make music to developing their imaginations and cognitive functions, having a music zone on your playground can really benefit your children.

Balksbury Infant School understood this fact and were keen to establish a music zone for the children to explore the topic freely during their playtime, and maybe during outdoor lessons. From our Musical Play range, schools can choose from a wide variety of unique and innovative musical instruments. Out of the entire range, Balksbury decided on the following equipment:

Each of these pieces of musical play equipment will introduce children to new sounds and help them learn more about the world of music and other cultures too. The school really liked the unique look and sound of their new equipment, as it gave children something exciting to interact with, whilst learning more about their senses and music.

The Freestanding Chimes and Musical Triad come with the added benefit of being freestanding. Freestanding equipment allows teachers or staff members to easily relocate the equipment to areas where it is needed, or store away for when the play area needs to be more open. The movability and versatility of this equipment was a huge positive for the school, as it allowed the environment to remain fluid and always changing.

Bespoke Trim Trail

Trim Trails are always a hit with children. From their eye-catching designs to the unique physical challenges offered by them, trim trails are a great way of encouraging children to engage in more active play scenarios and develop heir physicality.

As one of the main aims of the project was to encourage active play, the school felt that having a bespoke trim trail would allow them to create an obstacle course that would instantly grab the attention of their children. After viewing the numerous amounts of challenges offered in our Trim Trail range, the school settled on:

Not only will each of these unique challenges help children improve unique physical skills and attributes, but they also come together to form a truly original piece of play equipment, helping the school's play area stand out from the rest. Having such a unique selling point, the school felt really positive towards the trim trail and felt like it could attract new students to the school.

We only use the highest quality materials to construct our play equipment. Our trim trails are made from high pressure treated 'play grade' timber and steel reinforced nylon ropes, meaning each piece of the trim trail will last for years to come.

Having such a unique design, watch as children effortlessly engage in active play as they use their imaginations to escape into new worlds. From temple explorers trying to find a lost artifact to a group of adventurers making a perilous journey to a castle, teachers can sit back and watch the numerous exciting scenarios created by their children, whilst knowing that their students are developing their core physical skills.

Outdoor Gym Zone

Gym zones can provide children with a chance to work on equipment that targets specific areas of muscles. Each piece of equipment from our Outdoor Gym Equipment range is specially made for children, with the weights and specifications tailored to meet their heights and physical requirements.

From the traditional Arm & Pedal Bike to the popular Air Skier, each piece of our outdoor gym equipment is built from galvanised and powder coated steel, ensuring that the product lasts for years and years. No matter how often the equipment is used, you can be rest assured that it will stand the test of time with our 10-year guarantee attached to each product.

A key objective for the school was to establish healthy behaviours and mindsets towards exercise, which was easily achieved by creating this distinctive zone. Using our 25 years worth of experience in the playground industry, we've learned how to combine fun and physical development into our outdoor gym equipment range.

The school were really impressed with the quality of the equipment and how each piece of equipment would help children develop a certain area of muscles. Due to this, the school saw an opportunity to integrate this zone into their PE curriculum and lessons, helping staff effectively teach pupils about exercise and health.

EYFS Zone

The final zone that the school was looking to improve was the early years play area. During the early years stage, it's vital that children are exposed to play equipment that promotes development in a variety of areas to help children prepare themselves for further education.

From sensory play to role play, Balksbury knew how important it was to introduce new equipment for the children to explore different types of play. After reviewing our entire range of play equipment, the school decided to get the following:

Not only do these pieces of play equipment help children develop a variety of new skills, but they are also guaranteed to keep children engaged during playtime with beneficial activities. The school loved this aspect as they wanted to bring life back to playtime and equipment like this was a key factor to it.

The school also decided to get some surfacing for underneath their outdoor classroom canopy to create a more stable environment. After speaking to our experts, the school settled on the traditional Black Wetpour. Not only is the surfacing extremely safe and durable, but the surface also compliments Playturf wonderfully by providing a unique sensory experience.

The Results

After a few months had passed by, Pentagon Play reached out to the Balksbury Federation and asked if a small team could visit the school and learn about how the playground equipment was impacting playtime. After being given the greenlight, our team excitedly made the journey to Andover.

As soon as we entered the building, we were greeted by Tara, Emily and other members of staff. Throughout the entire tour, the staff remained friendly and accommodating to our team and were always on hand to provide our team with in-depth insights on how our equipment was improving the lives of their children.

Entering the playground, the first thing we noticed was how bright and vibrant the new surfacing was. The Playturf added a new sense of life to the play area, with teachers even commenting on how the new surfacing went really well with the surrounding area and equipment.

Passing by the play equipment, the staff explained how each of the new pieces of play equipment had helped the school achieve their goals. From children developing positive attitudes towards exercise to children improving their creative skills with musical instruments, the pupils were showing great signs of development.

Emily mentioned how the new play area was a hit with the children and that the playground has never looked so lively. The school was over-the-moon to see their pupils engaging and fully-emersed with their new play environment.

We wish the absolute best for the Balksbury Federation and hope that they continue to shape the future generations into great people!