South Baddesley Primary School

South Baddesley C of E Primary School’s involvement with the Landscape Strategy Team provided the opportunity to consider the whole school site in a truly integrated way, exploring the themes of play, nature, learning, access and arrival, all within the wider context of community and landscape.

As a starting point, the school formed a Steering Group to represent all interests across its community. Guided by the Landscape Strategy Team, a Landscape Strategy emerged for the whole site through a site planning process. Coinciding with a major building project, this in-depth look at the outdoor spaces helped the school to challenge their design thinking and brought a positive influence to the decision-making around the siting of the new hall and community building.

Collaborating with the Landscape Strategy Team made a real difference to the school and provided the starting point for the development of the grounds, which continued to work effectively well beyond the duration of the building project. Working in this way also helped the school to find solutions to the problem of safe access to the site.

Key Benefits

• Through the development of a shared vision for the whole site, the school discovered that it had lots of underused outdoor space which could be used more productively for learning and play.
• Learning outdoors is now a large part of the curriculum and a thatched outdoor classroom has been constructed, involving local people. This has become a source of inspiration to everyone.
• A much-needed new hard court has been integrated into the site and the imaginative play space has been extended.
• Children no longer have to use the main vehicular entrance and have a new safe walkway into school through a wildflower meadow planted by the children.
• Projects such as recycling and solar power to reduce the school’s carbon footprint by 20% are now part of the school day, supporting the teaching of sustainable living and renewable resources.