Stoneyholme Primary, Burnley

After being awarded the contract to transform Stoneyholme Primary school's large but ultimately vacant play area, Pendlewood designers and Stoneyholme Headteacher Julie Swann immediately set about drawing up plans to bring the play area up to the same level of excellence that the rest of the school had.

A hugely ambitious project, the main initial aim was to create a play and learning environment that challenged the stereotypical ideas of a playground. From this brief, Pendlewood was certain of one thing - it needed to be a school playground that radiated fun and adventure and allowed for children and staff to experience the ultimate in educational outdoor play experience.

The school was also keen for there to be a large storage solution that was in keeping with the play area theme. An idea floated for this was to create something versatile - that could also be used as a quiet, chill-out shaded area for lessons where pupils could learn outside the classroom.

Following on from the brief, Pendlewood's design team went back to HQ and really got down to business! Here is what they managed to create:

The centrepiece of the play area was the striking HMS Intrepid. This epic play structure encourages role play, social interaction and has a variety of physical challenges for the children. There were several bespoke play features added to the Intrepid to give the structure an element of discovery and to install a hunger for learning through the play.

In keeping with the ‘Discovery' theme we decided to use a bright and stimulating softplay surface. This was in Deep Blue and Golden yellow in the pattern of an ocean and a beach and also was designed to include curves and lines of an ocean, which once again would really mentally stimulate the pupils and encourage imaginative and creative play.

We also added a Beach Hut Kew, a Xavier , a Traversing Wall, the ocean themed Steve the Shark sculpture, and also something a little different...

The School Pupils also helped us to design a Bespoke Mini Golf Course. This enabled the play area to have the creative stamp on the people who are going to use it - at Pendlewood we believe it's imperative to get the feedback and opinion of the children - after all it is they who will be using it! This active play game is able to improve hand-eye coordination, concentration and accuracy as well as giving something unique to the play area.

As can be seen from the pictures in this page, the transformation of the play area was a huge success. Thanks to the super-efficiency of Pendlewood's installation team it took less than 2 weeks to install this epic play area!

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