Christ Church C of E Primary school, located near the town centre of Weston Super Mare, prides itself on providing a village atmosphere within a safe and caring environment for its pupils. The school has limited outdoor space for the children to play in and the management team wanted to address this by making the best possible use of what they had. The existing tarmac play area was not meeting their needs; drainage was a particular issue as water gathered and pooled on the surface when it rained, and it also proved a very unforgiving ‘landing mat’ in the case of trips and falls.
Healthy Pupils CIF secured
Hookway has worked with the school for several years, so they asked us to submit a bid for Condition Improvement Funding. We took advantage a of a unique ‘Healthy Pupils CIF’ opportunity. This enabled the school to secure adequate funding to install a fabulous new Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) including a multi-sport synthetic grass pitch and composite rubberised play area.
The pitch consists of a hard wearing, multi-sport, needle punch synthetic grass with integral shock pad and has been constructed to ensure proper drainage to improve usability, even in wetter months. It has pitch markings for football and netball as well as demountable goal posts and netball hoop creating a far more flexible play area.
Encouraging healthy, outdoor play
The new MUGA supports structured games and encourages students to play out of doors and get more exercise in the fresh air. The additional rubberised surface area next to the pitch is decorated with cheerful graphics, here the children can play hop scotch and other games. An area of specially prepared rubberised surface has been installed adjacent to the school’s climbing wall and provides a far more forgiving ‘crashmat’.
All in all, the newly refurbished, purpose-built and much improved games area will provide Christ Church schools’ pupils with a fantastic new and much improved outdoor space that will encourage and support safe, healthy exercise.
Brilliant feedback from our client
Clive Wilson (Headteacher) said, “Hookway recently secured funding through CIF to install a new playground surface (MUGA) for our front playground to help improve the PE opportunities and safety aspects for the children. We have a long-established relationship with Tom (Surveyor) at Hookway Partnership and sought his help and advice for this project. Tom helped to scope the project, undertook all tendering and pre-installation CDM aspects and then acted as first point of contact for the contractors over the summer holidays. Tom's advice and guidance, were as usual exemplary and he helped trouble-shoot any practical problems that arose to get the work completed on time and in budget. The children are over the moon about their new playground, and are already enjoying safer and more interesting playtime and sports lessons.”
Christ Church recently became an Academy, and forms part of the Kaleidoscope Multi Academy Trust. Following the Head Master’s strong recommendation, other member schools are now planning to use Hookway for support with surveying and maintenance of their school buildings.