Guest Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Hello every one, I hope you can help me, I have just got a capital grant to develope the outside area, Let me tell you about the setting, we are a pack away in a village hall, open every morning. We have a fenced in area for our garden (its a small part of the community play grounds) I have now come up against a brick wall of the village committee. I want to put down a patio surface on one quater of the garden so the children can use this area in the winter months. At the moments its all grass and get's very boggy in the winter the children dont want to go out. The pre-school committee are really up for developing the grassed area, but as i said the village committee are asking me for legislation for florring ect....... Yet more time wasted! Have any of you got anything I can use. I want to put in a sandpit so the children can get in and dig. A small sensory garden using tyers and such like and a small patio surface. The village committee have said yes to developing after 3 months of bartering but we cant put down the hard surface untill we give them more info. Please Help im getting to the point where I think whats the point. I get passed one committee and then i come up against another. KAT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 For the best idvice i cannot recomment Learning through Landscapess Highly enough. There is a joining fee, but for that you get some wonderful information and ideas, but best of all you have a hotling to their experienced Early Years advice. Just join, you won't regret it! They will also infor you on any legal concerns. I am thinking of seting up as a Early Years Outdoor consultant so hopefully when I get going I could help in this also. Good luck Sunshine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_12805 Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 Be warned it took nearly six months for Learning with Landscapes to finally contact us. Our LA paid the membership fee for any group in our borough who wanted to develop an outdoor space. By the time they actually made contact with us, we had given up and made or own arrangements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Hi I am in the same position as you. We are located in a church hall and have a grassed area which we partition off. The church committee will not allow us to do anything to the area and have complained non stop about the children playing out. I would also like to develop the area further, but due to restrisctions from the church......it is a definate NO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I just wanted to reassure you that it is possible to achieve this with a concerted effort. We have just turned a patch of tarmac outside our village hall into a lovely, if small, garden area for our children. (I actually wrote some articles about it so if you get Nursery Education magazine keep an eye out in the July issue for the 1st part). I would be tempted to talk to the trustees of your village hall, who may be a different body to the hall committee, and who should have the power to decide what goes. I would also contact local people, organisations, etc. to try and get a community push behind creating this space. If you've got the grant from your LEA, why not get them to push the hall committee into agreeing to your plans? We got a garden designer to draw up our design (he did this for us for free) and we could then show this to the committee, and also we sent a copy to Ofsted (because it's a significant change to the setting). In terms of hard landscaping, we have gone mainly for weed matting with a thick layer of gravel on top (there is tarmac underneath which we couldn't remove). This is proving to be a good surface for the children and also they are enjoying playing around with it. You can also get those kind of rubber floor tiles which they use in children's playgrounds. We also included a pond and I got a strong grid to cover this so it is safe. We have a sensory theme with herbs, crops, etc. Good luck with your project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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