Educational Establishments
safety characteristics demanded of schools. “The maintenance
programme includes applying drag mats, a greens groom zig- zag twice weekly and vacuuming leaves and debris off the surface,” Alan adds. In the throes of the tennis
season, when no fewer than twelve Harrod UK ‘zip-up’ courts are erected on the pitch, Garry is busy ensuring that all functions as it should. Yarm runs a bustling summer
Alan Hodgson (left) with Garry Cox
tennis programme across its Prep and Senior Schools - playing at competition level, with teams also touring. “We have some excellent players,” says Alan, who has witnessed the rise of the sport at Yarm over his tenure. As 2016 is the first season on the fresh surface, everything has to be just so. “The nets are made to a new
The new hockey pitch can accommodate twelve tennis courts in the summer
cantilevered weighted system,” Alan explains. “We are delighted with them. They are easy to set up and are also less expensive to maintain than traditional ones.” Meanwhile, the MUGA holds another three courts, Garry sweeps in the polymeric surface and sprays the area to control moss and algae. Alan is a longstanding
employee of the school, evolving over twenty-eight years from a builder and contractor to expand his scale of responsibility to oversee caretaking, maintenance and project management of Yarm’s developments, which have totalled £25m in recent years. Although the school does not
Garry going about his regular brushing
employ a head groundsman as such, Alan is, to all intents and purposes, fulfilling that role, with help from GGN Sportscare, the sports contractor that has serviced the playing fields for nearly twenty years. His sphere of responsibility is
Aerial view of Yarm School 58 I PC JUNE/JULY 2016
vast. Overseeing the school’s maintenance falls within his remit, as does security, electrical testing and inspecting. He is Yarm’s health and safety advisor and chairs the fifteen strong health and safety committee, which deals with risk assessments, method statements and H & S audits for teaching and non-teaching departments, discussing policy issues with deputy head Mr David Woodward. “Since I began at Yarm School, my responsibility has grown as the school has grown
from 300 pupils to 1,250 today,” he notes. “We are a thriving, successful and buoyant establishment that is certainly making its mark in education.” Proving his statement is the
fact that the Government recently invited headmaster David Dunn to speak to the House of Lords on how to thrive in a recession. Caretakers in schools are
evolving into other roles generally and that’s true at Yarm, where Sean Howard tackles gardening tasks such as tending the attractive borders surrounding the campus buildings and the extensive planting completed under CLS’s multi-million pound project that included major outlay on amenity turfing and landscaping. “We have invested £100,000 in soft landscaping alone to improve the whole presence of the estate,” Alan reveals. “That includes planting trees and hedging, winter and summer bedding and turfed areas around the main entrance and in the car park areas, which have been completely transformed.” These latest improvements
have raised the campus to new standards of presentation and impact, created under a project that involved complexities of tree preservation orders on an environmentally important site. “We have some special large specimen trees on site,” Alan confirms, “including a 250-300 year old London plane and a cedar tree that is at least two centuries old. There is also a rare Gingkho tree and weeping beech.”
“Some trees had to be
removed to make way for the synthetic pitch, but the tree replacement scheme has ensured we maintain the species diversity with a mix of London plane and oak, for example. Garry oversees the tree maintenance programme, watering and feeding to keep growth healthy.” Yarm has ploughed some £30,000 into permanent hedging that includes buxus, which is thriving in its North- eastern setting. “It only needs cutting once a year,” says Alan, “when it is bone dry, to prevent box blight.” Yarm’s ‘grand design’ is a
source of inspiration for many, not least Alan. “I gain enormous job satisfaction from working
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