Barley Mow Primary School, Gateshead

Colour worked closely with Barley Mow Primary head teacher, staff and pupils to develop an engaging landscape design for the new school. A variety of techniques were used to engage the staff and pupils in the design process allowing the user groups to be ‘skilled up’ to make the important decisions required for the new learning landscape. These techniques included:

- School council visits to other schools with new landscapes, took photos and used this to inform the other pupils of the potential.

- Introduction of the ‘snug toolkit’ (www.snugplay.co.uk) - a family of large scale, modular play elements that children can use separately or together in any combination, creating a dynamic, exciting playscape, where they can have fun, explore and learn. This was used to introduce different elements to the playground which was the evaluated by the school.

- Providing teachers with knowledge of how others have taken teaching and learning outdoors in different ways, followed by detailed discussions with each Key Stage learning group to investigate opportunities to deliver more of the curriculum outdoors and how the design might assist this.
 
The natural level change allowed the site to be broken into a two main terraces and interesting landform created providing playing field on one level, class gardens and playgrounds on another. A performance area is carved into the slope providing enough space for the whole school to assemble. Located around the building in a natural progression are the nursery and reception gardens, Key Stage 1 and 2 outdoor classrooms. Each area has been specifically detailed to a high level so as to providing the facilities needed to deliver the learning syllabus. 

Client

Gateshead Council / Carillion Plc

Location

Gateshead

Stage

Completed

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