Youngsters at Holbrook Pre-School benefit from new outdoor learning space

Holbrook Pre-School celebrates new outdoor learning and play area (Image: Archant)

The youngsters at Holbrook Pre-Schol Playgroup will now benefit from a new forest garden, muddy play and sand areas and story shelter.

Holbrook Pre-School celebrates new outdoor learning and play area (Image: Archant)

Parents and members of the Holbrook Pre-School and Cabin Club Committee have raised over £10,000 through bingo nights, cake stalls and sponsored events to create the garden, which was designed and built by Boast about the Garden.

Committee chairwoman, June Davenport said: “We have already seen a positive impact on the children using the new areas.

“They get more outdoor time, it’s a way they can learn instinctively, using it in a different way than they have before.

“They seem to be taking part in more inventive, more natural and more free-flowing play, inventing games of their own.”

The pre-school shares its ground with Holbrook Primary School, which donated some of its land for the play area to be built.

The space will be used by the pre-school children, aged two to five, during school hours, and by the older children, aged five to 11, in after school and breakfast clubs.

The forest area has been designed to cater for different learning requirements as the school actively encourages an intake of children with additional learning needs.

The school is celebrating the completion of the outdoor learning space with a ‘Garden Opening’ ceremony and tea party on Saturday from 2pm to 4pm.

There will be live entertainment, a raffle, homemade cakes, tea and coffee and money raised from the event will go to the Opportunity Group, which provides specialist care for children with additional needs up to the age of five, and for the pre-school to purchase more plants for the garden.