School projects

A dull shipping container was transformed into a medieval castle with the hard work of one of our young persons.

The centre was really happy with the result as was our young person who took pictures on their phone to show their parents the good work.

Car Park

The pre school reported that young children were jumping from the garage roof onto this grass area putting themselves in danger. The solution was to create some raised flower beds to prevent young children from jumping off the roof. This created a bright and vibrant area.

"Laira Green Primary has always had strong links with St Mary's Church.  We wanted to make the gardens more accessible for the community and for the school children even more so, as the school has no 'green' areas on site.  We wanted a clear site, a 'Forest school' type area where the children could sit and read, have marshmallows around a fire and so on.  This could then be used in conjunction with the church for various events." - Year 4/3 teacher - Laira Green Primary School RE Leader

The area we were given was overgrown with nettles and has been used as a dump for bush and grass cuttings for a number of years.

The young person with help from their worker cleared all the dumped grass branches, weeds, plants and then laid the foundations for the fire pit.

The fire pit was built and benches made by the young person at our small workshop in a youth centre.

We then organised two afternoon sessions to meet up with the Eco warriors from the school.

As a group the young person and the Eco warriors laid a weed proof membrane over the area, this was covered by wood chippings. They then placed the benches around the fire pit.

"Laira Green Primary have recently joined the Eco-Schools programme which empowers pupils, raises environmental awareness, improves the school environment and can even create financial savings for schools.  One of the first tasks was to select representatives who would be responsible for turning up to meetings, excited about helping our school to help the environment and able to work as a team to share ideas and develop our project.

These Eco-Warriors' first task has been working alongside the Youth Offending Team (YOT) to help with a litter pick of the church gardens and move the woodchips from the front to the back of the church. It was a much more difficult and tiring job then any of them had imagined." - Year 4/3 teacher - Laira Green Primary School RE Leader

This was a great project for the YOT as the young person could see how much the children were looking forward to using this space when they met with them for the last two sessions especially when they all sat around the empty fire pit pretending to toast imaginary marshmallows.

The young person in reflection will hopefully realise that they do have the skills and commitment required to do something more constructive with their time and use this experience to move on with their life.

Many thanks to the council's parks department who provided the wood chippings and logs and to the various local buildings sites for the timber used for the fire pit benches and cobbles.

All materials were given free of charge.

We were contacted by the school to see if we could help to provide some outside areas for storytelling. When on a site visit we noticed some damage to the benches and decking around the pond.

The youth person dismantled the decking and made a beach area so the children could still access the pond.

The youth person had to measure the size of the lengths of wood that would be needed to replace the missing and rotten pieces. They then had to cut and sand these at our small workshop before given them a nice new bright coat of paint before assembling them in place.

Due to the bright colour of the bench it is now where someone sits if they have no one to play with. This is then noticed by the other children who then invite them to play with them.

This area was used in the past to keep chickens and had been neglected and forgotten.

The school wanted an outside area where the children could sit and read and also do lessons

Our young person had to design and make the benches from scrap materials that were kindly donated by a local building site this was done in our small workshop.

They added a Piece of wood along the bottom of the bench so the children can place their feet on it thus bringing up their knees so they can rest a clip board on them for when they need to write.

The young person then covered the area with wood chips and as you can see from the picture turned a forgotten space into a lovely outside area for storytelling and lessons.

The creche area was looking tatty with graffiti on doors and walls. We gave this area a makeover by painting the walls, windows and by cleaning graffiti of the doors.

The playground map paintings were badly faded with the risk of being lost. We repainted the maps so they could be used as part of the school children's learning.

The young people involved turned a under used wooded area into a space for story telling and toasting marshmallows as well as creating a number of bug hotels for the children to use for their learning outside of the classroom.

The wood chips were kindly donated by our parks department and the building materials from a local building site.

The fire grill was made by the First year Babcock apprentices at City College Plymouth.

We were asked if we could build a fire pit area and for the children to use. The images above show the area before. The young people had to clear the area of bushes and brambles and build the benches and fire surround. The materials were provided free of charge from local building sites.

This was part way through the project.

The fire pit area is now finished and the school were very pleased with the result and the feedback we received of the young people enjoying it has been passed on to the young people who built it.

This was a game we made for the younger children at the school.