An Inverness nursery is aiming to raise funds to revamp its outdoor area into a more interactive play space.
Acorn Nursery at Cauldeen Primary School has launched a GoFundMe to raise £10,000 to overhaul the nursery garden.
The team say the garden is “not looking its best”, with limited equipment, overgrown weeds, dry soil and patchy grass, which kicks up dust in windy conditions.
The space was left bare and impractical for the almost 70 children at the nursery because of recent dry weather.
Staff plan to raise funds through donations and grants and complete fundraising projects with the community to reach their target.
Joy Smith, the senior early years’ practitioner at the nursery, spoke about why they were raising funds to upgrade the outdoor space.
She told The P&J: “Part of our improvement plan this year is looking at the play pedagogy, which is how children learn through play.
“We now want to move that outside, but due to Covid, our outside play area needs an uplift.
“We want to involve the community, so we have made a plan with the children who have put together a mind map of what they what outside.
Interactive sections
“The biggest thing has been the maintaining of the garden, especially given this recent dry winter and summer we have had, so we have lost a lot of grass.”
The vision for the new outdoor area is to divide it into interactive sections, including construction, planting and digging.
The team are keen to emphasize the idea of “loose” play, which allows children to learn, create and investigate without limitations.
The main feature that staff want to see is a shed, which will contain writing and literacy materials for children to experiment with.
Many children at the nursery enjoy climbing, so another feature proposed is a Teletubbies’ themed hill.
The school sits in a rapidly growing catchment area, and attendance levels will rise in the next few years, so staff want a modern and interactive outdoor space for kids.
Ms Smith said: “We are in an area with lots of flats and children don’t have access to gardens, so we also want to give them the experience of a good garden with lots of activities.
“We want to make sure that area has everything they need to have that experience of outside play.”
While asking the public to help fund the project, staff are also looking for local parents to get involved and raise community spirit.
Can you help?
Several things are being removed from the garden to make way for some changes once the nursery acquires the necessary funds.
The blue shed in the corner has been dismantled and the large Rowan tree in the middle of the space will be uprooted.
Simone Cumming, another staff member at the nursery, thinks the whole garden needs a revamp following the lack of maintenance during the pandemic.
She said: “It’s been on the horizon for a while, but Covid has forced the issue because kids have been isolated, and their social skills haven’t been used as much.
“The garden has so much potential. We are one of the luckiest nurseries to have such a big area, and we could do so much with it.”
Recently, the staff have sought to move away from the usual plastic children’s outdoor play sets and opt for more sustainable equipment made of wood etc.
Ms Cumming added: “I am all for kids making a mess; any water, mud anything like that so they can dig and get into the experience.
“We do have the capacity to do that in the outdoor space, but at the moment it is very limited. The most important thing is the kids can have fun outside.”
To find out more visit the Acorn Nursery’s GoFundMe page.
Conversation