Haydonleigh Primary School

Having worked with Playtime by Fawns in the  past, Haydonleigh Primary School called us in when, as part of their school expansion, they needed an additional play area which offered all year round play for both KS1 & KS2.

They have temporarily lost quite a bit of their playground while the expansion works are being carried out, so creating an additional play space which could challenge a wide range of abilities and have all weather surfacing was what was needed. Paul Hales, the Playtime by Fawns play consultant for Swindon visited the school and met with the school business manager Sue Heath and the schools building ambassadors, a group of students whose role was to keep the rest of the children informed about the building progress and answer any questions that the children may have. The ambassadors consulted fellow students on the type of equipment they thought would work well across the school, and then worked with Paul to design equipment which fitted the space and budget.

The children also considered the  best surfacing to go under the  equipment, based on the options and advice Paul offered. The results are  a trail offering a mixture of challenges connected to a pick up sticks unit, an open ended climbing structure which offer non prescriptive play. This was the first time we had connected these two units together and was a direct result of the feedback the children gave us from their research –  as you can  see the children love putting the equipment through its paces.