This is the last time we will be at the school before our final year placement. We arranged to meet with the school SENCO to discuss our project so far and what we would like the school to do whilst we are on placement. Now that the pergola and sleepers were built we were thinking more about making the area more visually appealing, as well as designing it to be educational. We wanted to check with the school that our ideas fit in with their plans.
Harvey was able to get the meeting underway whilst Roberto and Jack (attending a project lecture) arrived shortly after. The main points which were covered in the meeting where:
We preferred the idea of having artificial grass, but we understood that the cost is far greater than our budget will stretch to. We had to change our idea, and luckily the SENCO suggested that we should use stones to cover the whole area, but have a different colour of stones for the pergola. We all agreed and thought the idea would make the area look clean and tidy. This would also help us overcome the problem of the area being uneven which will be amplified by the artificial grass especially when sitting on the table.
The inclusion of pupils to help our project. A selection of pupils are going to help us build the Bugs Hotel; they have already managed to do some research on what habitats bugs live in. We also suggested the pupils could help us move the soil (currently taking up a car park space) into the sleepers ready for the seeds to be planted. We managed to collect a selection of pallets and also 4 tyres to help the group build their bugs hotel design.
Through many spontaneous ideas, Roberto came up with a fantastic idea of creating a mosaic for the garden, reading something along the lines of ‘Our Allotment Garden’. This idea went down well and it suggested that the pupils would be able to design it for us, if we supplied them with the correct resources.
Having a fence between the sitting area and the bugs hotel was suggested but we mentioned we may not be able to fit this into our budget. We knew that we would have to do some research around this.
We were thrilled that the school offered to post a small paragraph of what we are doing at their school into a local newspaper. We planned to write it that evening and send it over.
Our plan today was to paint the shed. We decided to lighten up the area, as it wasn't very colourful. We opted for a blue (seagrass) colour, Jack wasn’t sure on the colour at first and wanted a ‘traditional’ shed colour - you could say he was feeling a little blue about the situation. Luckily Harvey persuaded Jack that the chosen colour will improve the area. Once we got outside we started (okay maybe we complained about being cold for 5 minutes) to clean the shed as it was covered in spider webs, moss and leaves. We thought that it was best if we all grabbed a brush and got the shed cleared as soon as possible before thinking about other jobs that we needed to complete.
It was time to open up the paint, Jack was sat there in anticipation whilst Harvey opened up the paint to reveal the colour. His first words being ‘It’s a bit blue isn’t it?’ weren’t promising but Harvey backed his confidence in the colour. After the shed was painted, Jack finally agreed that the shed looked 100x better being blue. Afterwards, we quickly measured the area once again to make sure that we ordered the correct amount of stones.
We tidied the area before saying goodbye for a few months (we hope nothing falls down) and went inside to warm our hands from the freezing weather. After a small chat with the headteacher about our project so far, we jumped in our cars, turned the heating up and drove back to our homes.