Grants Grants


‘WE WON A £5,000 GRANT TO CREATE AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM AND BUY EQUIPMENT’


A


llendale Primary is a small rural school of 118 pupils in the North Pennines. Learning outside the classroom is a big


part of our rich and engaging curriculum and we have a fantastic outdoor space of around an acre. This has long been used by all of our pupils, as well as the wider community, including the Allen Valley Scouts, Cubs and Wildlife Group. However, the space is very exposed to the extreme weather conditions of this area, which limited the type of activities our young people could take part in. We therefore decided to launch a


fundraising campaign to build an outdoor classroom, which would allow the pupils and community groups to be


outside in all weather. We also wanted to raise funds for new tools and equipment as we had only a few poor quality, broken nets to explore the wonderful creatures in our pond habitat, while our tarps for shelter building had succumbed to the wind. Replacing these and purchasing new tools would enable the young people in our community to develop new skills in bush craft and conservation, as well as developing their confidence, cooperation, strength and motor skills. We decided to apply to the Calor Rural


Community Fund, which provides a crowdfunding platform for projects to be publicised and donations collected. It runs for a month every summer and the Fund then awards top-up grants of up to


£5,000 for the best and most successful crowdfunding projects. We applied to take part in spring 2021 and ran our campaign in the one-month window from mid June to mid July. On our crowdfunding page we


gave details of what we wanted to do, highlighting the fact that learning outside has been shown to improve children’s personal and social development, as well as their emotional wellbeing. We also told the story of our project journey so far, from securing funding from Newcastle University for a fire pit and pond, to the children planting trees donated by the Woodland Trust and using recycled materials to create hedgehog homes, bird boxes and a bug hotel.


FundEd SUMMER 2022 15


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