Outdoor Covered Area - How to tell school it needs to improve!

[BlueberryPancake]

DS is in Reception, in a good small local school in London. The school has an excellent reputation in our area, and is generally very good. But I feel that the outdoor area for Nursery is quite poor. It has an old low table with two chairs, a pretend desk which the kids usually pretend is a 'police station' or a hospital reception, a whiteboard with some pens, a wooden board with letters. That's it.

I used to pick up a friend's little girl from another school and they had a very large covered area with all sorts of desks, toys, games, pretend play areas. etc.

Should I speak to the school about it? I think that outdoor play and learning is really important as they have so much energy. Many boys in DS class are quite aggressive and I feel that their 'energy' isn't controlled and behaviour might improve if they'd have more stimuating outdoor stuff.

Could you please tell me if you think it's worth raising this with the school/teacher? What does your school provide for key stage 1?

Many thanks!

Maybe you should approach it in a positive way, it'd be unfair to criticise - could you ask about fundraising perhaps?

It might be something to get the PTA involved in - ours has been focused on the 'outdoor environment' for the last couple of years, and money has been raised for some significant improvements.

Agree with FreudianSlimmery that if you volunteered to organise fundraising to re-do teh area it would go down well. We have quite a good garden for Reception, all the equipment was either donated or money was raised by parents to pay for it. Parents volunteered to help the teacher put it all together.

It's probably a money thing. If money was no object then I bet the school would buy better equipment.

Outdoor learning area improvements is one of things that our PTA is fundraising for. If you are not a member then I would try and find out and get stuck in- even if it's just passing on equipment that your child doesn't use at home but could be reused at school.

I am already involved in PTA and we have just funded a garden project of £7,000 and a new £4,000 climbing frame.

Anyway I thought that PTA money was not to be used for didactic material as such, that's supposed to come out of the school budget? I always thought that PTA money was for extras - such as gardening projects, extra equipment, not for the basic learning stuff? Am I wrong?

What is your PTA spending money on? Would a new roof for outdoor covered area be on the list because our PTA decided that that was basic school obligation and had to come out of school budget...

The budgets have been cut by so much that at the moment PTA/fundraising money is being used for anything, for example marking out sports courts, school team kits, paying for the bus to swimming lessons, even paint for the classroom walls!

We have been known to use PTA money to buy new Reading Scheme books for KS1 and literacy posters for KS2, carpets for KS2, etc. The school does what it can, but there really isn't much to go around.

In dds' school (youngest is in nursery, oldest in Y2) there is a semi-covered outdoor area that nursery share with Reception - its large, but not just for nursery. Nursery have their own tiny makeshift outdoor area with sand table, water table, whiteboard easel, and possibly one other thing (forget).

Y1 has a good sized outdoor covered play area, with all sorts of activities. Tatty, but rich, iyswim.

I would fundraise

Our reception children have a covered outside area with loads of stuff.

Slides, fort, massive blocks for building with. Walls with blackboards on. Playhouse. OUtside games. Water and sand play.

In Year 1 they have a smaller outside area that isn't entirely enclosed like the reception one - has a low fence with a gate that leads to the main playground. They have wall art/murals, sand and water area. Big building blocks (like the size of a pack of photocopier paper).

In year 2 they don't have self-contained outside area - they use the playground and field.

A lot of the money for the play equipment and building work at the school came from the PTA. They've recently been saving towards an outside changing area. Within the last 3 years paid for an outside gym - balancing bars/wobble boards and so on. Also for a mobile laptop recharging station with 16 laptops. And last year for the art bays in 4 classrooms to be converted to additional learning areas - demolition of walls and construction work to join the areas up.

Definitely agree that the PTA fundraising is a great way of improving areas within the school.

our reception children don't have any outdoor covered area. they do have two play houses that leak like sieves but no covered area. the pta did raise money for a sun awning tho for summer. the area is quite small as it has been fenced off from the ks1 playground but they do quite well with what they have got. there is a climbing frame/ slide in the key stage 1 playground and they are allowed on this 2 days a week(rota)

oUr YR covered area looks pretty bare after school, but see it mid teaching and its a busy place . Only permanent thing is a sand pit and a play house. benches etc seem to move about, water table comes out, today there were some old tyres in a line being used for balance games.