A Breathtaking Playground Design to Celebrate Wheatfield's 20th Anniversary
Wow! That was the word on everyone’s lips when they saw the brand new playground development coming to life at Wheatfield Primary School in South Gloucestershire. And what a transformation it is!
We were over the moon to be able to support this wonderful primary school in achieving their “dream scheme” for their pupils as they celebrate their 20th Anniversary.
Wheatfield Primary are promoting a healthy lifestyle and love of exercise for all of their children, through safe risk-taking and exciting challenges within a safe environment, as part of a long-term project.
Their decision to redevelop their playground was a big part of this, and they wanted us to provide playground equipment that would develop children's upper and lower body strength, balance and gross motor skills.
The school identified a number of priorities that they wanted us to focus on as we prepared the playground design. These included:
- To provide a KS2 physical challenge that is more challenging and social, supporting more skill based climbing and upper body development. Ideally this would allow for a spread of children throughout the space to avoid any dominance and ownership over the play space.
- To create dual purpose social spaces that can be used both at break times and during lessons.
- To lay all-weather surfacing that would allow the school to access and use areas of the grounds that were inaccessible mud and shrubs, and presented a maintenance issue.
- To build a MUGA for multi-sport use, to support PE timetabling, after school activities and break time sports.
- To transform the grounds into a low-maintenance outdoor environment throughout.
In order to make the most of all the outdoor space that the school had available, and to manage the range of different play based activities and associated behaviours, we designed the new playground by splitting it into different zones.
These zones reflect the different types of play that the children can now engage in at different times of the school day.
KS2 physical challenge zone
We designed this area along one side of the playground away from the main school building. It’s a physically challenging, engaging and exciting space for all KS2 children.
The area includes a selection of high and low level climbers that promote holistic physical development, focusing on building upper body, core stability and grip strength whilst also nurturing skills in balance, coordination and risk taking.
First we cleared out and removed from site all the old shrubs and debris. Once we had the groundworks ready, we installed:
- Our Puzzlewood Forest Circuit - is made up of numerous climbing obstacles featured at different levels. It’s an open-ended frame with so much to challenge the children, and thanks to its sheer size there is plenty of room for a large group to join in altogether! Scrambling through nets, negotiating swinging ropes and scaling up the climbing wall, there is plenty of problem-solving going on at the same time as the children at Wheatfield play.
- Our Tryfan Climber - a triangular log and rope climber, again with flexible entry and exit points and a combination of easier and more complicated climbing challenges. It has a versatile space underneath which is perfect for children to enjoy den building activities too.
We installed our beautiful all-weather Playturf Artificial Grass throughout this area, with our high-level safety baseworks to minimise impact and injury from falls, so children can get on with their job of having fun, playing and learning!
The children at Wheatfield Primary are now enjoying being active and sociable as they instigate many wonderful and imaginative games using each of these open-ended play frames.
Lunch time zone and seating area
The primary focus of this area is to provide a large expanse of seating where the children at Wheatfield can sit and relax, socialise and even enjoy their school lunches during the summer months.
The area benefits from natural shade by the school building and the beautiful woodland area, so it can be enjoyed in the summer months without the children becoming too hot.
We reduced the propensity for active play to take place in this area with a selection of moveable Picnic Tables that can be moved around to change the flow of traffic in this space. The tables will be used for the children to enjoy outdoor learning activities as much as to socialise and enjoy lunch together.
We used our Playturf Artificial Grass in between paving in this area to create a real “gardens” feel. It’s clean, mud-free and self-draining, so it’s a lovely spot for the children to relax and build friendships together.
Multi-use sports and games area
We created a brand new all-weather space for outdoor games, team sports and PE lessons with the installation of one of our fabulous MUGAs. This area will support PE lessons, break times and after school activities.
The sports line markings and grass-green sports surface were carefully selected so that a wide range of sports can be enjoyed on the MUGA at Wheatfield Primary, including football, hockey, tennis, tag rugby, handball and basketball.
Two Recessed Goal Ends (colour coded in red and blue of course to satisfy teams!) are a striking feature of this MUGA, along with Integrated Netball Sockets, to allow a great variety of ball games to take place.
The surrounding 2m-high fence includes sports rebound mesh and has two single access gates at each end for safety, security and durability.
A special feature at Wheatfield is the delightful brick-paved pathway which we installed leading up to the MUGA. It showcases all of the wonderful memory-bricks that have been donated to the school by children and their families, staff and local businesses - something very special to Wheatfield that will be enjoyed for generations to come.
Happy Anniversary Wheatfield Primary!
Thinking of redeveloping your playground? At Pentagon Play, we have been creating incredible playgrounds for schools and nurseries for over 20 years. You can view our full range of products and find out more about what we do on our website! Please don’t hesitate to Contact Us to arrange a free consultation with one of our education experts.
