The summer holidays are here

And like many new teachers

And teachers moving schools or classrooms

I am in an excited state of planning and preparing for Autumn

Sadly my summer has had something of a set back

The school roof sprung a leak

Resulting in the ceiling of mine and another classroom

Being water damaged

And needing to be pulled down

Thankfully this has happened at the beginning of the holiday

And not at the end

And thank goodness it happened in a holiday at all

And not when the rooms were filled with children

The damage is bad

And routine work needing to be done to the classrooms is having to be delayed

In the next 5 weeks

The roof needs to dry out so that the damaged ceilings can be replaced

The floor needs too be pulled up so that asbestos can be removed

The walls and ceiling need to be painted

And a new carpet needs to be laid

Then and only then

Can we get into our rooms to arrange furniture

Organise resources

And put displays!

Not quite the summer schedule I was hoping for

But …

Not one to be easily beaten

I am busy at home

Printing, making and laminating resources

Collecting bits and bobs to make

An exciting and inspiring learning space for September

And while we wait to get inside

David and I have set our sights outside

Trying to turn an overgrown bank and disused pond

Into an outside area for my new Year Ones and Twos

David and I went to school with all our tools

And our children

And started to try and clear the space

It is proving to be a much bigger job than we had hoped

I have 5 weeks now to make the classroom

And the outside space safe and inviting for lots of small children

When we first discovered the water damaged classrooms

And found hundreds of pounds worth of resources floating in deep, dirty water

We appealed to friends and family and the local community

For donations of toys and books, puppets, puzzles and games

To help us be ready for the children in September

The school can of course claim on it’s insurance

But as with all things this takes time

I am putting a plea together at the moment

To try and find a sponsor for my outside area

There is a steep bank that has a pond and was totally overgrown

We have cut it down, strimmed it and found the shape of the original bank

In an ideal world I would have liked to get rid of the bank completely

But now we think it is actually holding up the playground so it cannot easily or cheaply be removed

Which means I need to use it in some way to enhance the outdoor learning of the children

My second best plan is to create a grassy ampitheatre space

For children to sit and read on, for us to present work to one another

It could be a lovely space with either real grass or astro turf

It could just be made into a grass bank, which would not be as useful

But might be the only option to get it looking okay in time for September

Any creative ideas much appreciated

And any offers of help equally so

David did suggest a slide from the playground to the classroom!

How cool would that be?

So as August dawns

The road to September is looking rocky

But I do love a challenge

If you can help us out with classroom resources

In exchange for a blog post and review

If you know a company that would be able to sponsor our

Outdoor Learning Environment

Please do get in touch

jennie@edspire.co.uk

I am a teacher with a dream

Follow Edspire’s board little owls outside area on Pinterest.

A deadline

And a class full of children ready to learn!

Update 2nd August

I think that this is going to be the plan for the bank. A climbing wall, rainbow steps and a slide. Between the apparatus will be a sensory garden planted in rainbow painted tyres. I think this is the cheapest way to create a usable space in a fairly short amount of time. I am going to contact companies to see if anyone can help us in any way. If you or anyone that you know can please do get in touch. Thank you x