Sensory Garden Playground for Redlands School

Help us turn a small town-centre, brick and tarmac playground into a green space to bring more wildlife and nature into our community, improve mental health and wellbeing, provide opportunities to engage with outdoor learning, and be at one with Mother Nature. 

The Redlands Rockets are running Reading Half Marathon to raise money for Redlands Primary School to 'green' and 'wild' their playground.

We want to turn the school's urban playground into a sensory garden playground in the middle of our busy town.


THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE 
*To support the wellbeing and mental health of our children and the wider local community; being in nature is proven to improve mental health; Lockdown has been an absolute nightmare for many, and has affected the most vulnerable most.

*To help connect children with nature and understand their place in the natural world; 

*To teach our children and their families about climate change and how taking tiny steps can make a difference, such as capturing rainwater, using drought tolerant planting schemes, and providing urban cooling through the planting of more trees;

*Building outdoor learning into the school curriculum; using the outdoor space to support and enhance classroom topics such as maths and science and spark creative ideas in literacy and the arts;

*To build in opportunity for the pupils to directly benefit people in need in our wider local community; by creating initiatives in collaboration with a local community garden, and local charities

*To increase the oxygen levels and ecosystem in the area; we need more trees and bees!


MORE DETAIL ABOUT OUR PROJECT ( if you need more convincing to support us)
We need to keep the footprint of the running space for the children (they have such little space to play and learn), but we can get creative with the space and create an oasis in the middle of an urban landscape for local children in need. 

 We will create a wildlife and sensory garden which will increase biodiversity in an urban space and give scope to teach children about the fight against climate change, and crucially, will help improve mental health of our children, and the wider community, through a deeper connection with the natural world.

We will build small vegetable beds so we can give the children a place to engage in outdoor learning, and link it to the curriculum; not everyone learns in the same way. 

We will teach the children to grow their own food, so we can build their confidence, not only because they have nurtured something to fruition, but also because they are being exposed to a different sort of environment, albeit in the safe, urban perimeter of the world they know. 

We will create a sensory intervention space for children, and a space for quiet reflection. It’ll be a place for staff too. It’s been a tough old year for teaching and school support staff.

We will bring in small trees to improve air quality and provide shade, encourage wildlife and to soften the hard school walls, improve air quality, and create moveable green walls so the playground can separated out to create delineated outdoor spaces for group learning.  

The children would be completely involved in the creation of the spaces, choosing flowers and plants, and taking part in horticultural workshops, connecting them back to nature. Many of our children will have had no experience of working and engaging with nature in any visceral sense, at all.

Help us! And donate to help us get to our target!  

 
ABOUT  REDLANDS PRIMARY SCHOOL
Redlands Primary School is a small community school in the heart of Reading. 

The Redlands Rockets are parents, carers and supportive friends of Redlands School.  We'll be running around Reading for Reading Half Marathon to encourage you to donate. No pain, no gain, right?
 
Our school's ethos is steeped in the concept of community and diversity. 

Our school has a higher than average % of children with additional needs -  21% need Special Educational Needs Support. We have a higher than average % of children who speak English as an additional language, 72% in fact. We have a higher % than average of children who come from families with challenging socio-economic backgrounds.  

For many, the school is more than a place where their children are educated.  The school is a community hub, and a place where children, many of whom do not have space to play in their own homes or do not have outdoor space, can play safely, albeit in a space surrounded by brick walls.

The playground has always been too small, but increasingly with lockdown and the subsequent bubble system, it's become obvious that something must be done to give the children a calmer, healthier space, not just for physical play, but also for their mental health and wellbeing. 

And not just for these strange and tough times. We need to create an enriched space that will be a calming and sensory positive area with a garden sensibility for the long term and for generations to come, that will heal and will have a positive impact on not only our children but the wider community. 

 
ABOUT THE ROCKETS
Seasoned Halfers. First-timers. Done-it-before-but-not-for-a-whilers. We’re a group of parents, aunts, school staff, locals and well-wishers who have come together to run Reading Half Marathon and pool the money we raise for our children’s school to bring back nature and turn our urban into garden.

Help us show the children that their community, that their world, care about their development and wellbeing. That when there is need, the community will step up and invest in them and their future. Thank you for reading.  X