SEND

Whether you’re a SEN(D) teacher or a SEN(D)Co, and you've been given the task of creating a playground for your school, you may be wondering, where do I begin?

It can feel daunting, especially when this is one extra thing on the to-do list, but don’t panic! Whether it’s a new playground or an upgrade to an existing play area, we’re here to help every step of this highly rewarding journey.

We always start our projects in exactly the same way, and that’s to listen to you. Tell us about your school, the children and what you’d like to achieve. Different schools have different needs so we make it a priority to really listen and understand you.

We’ll have conversations, you’ll talk and we’ll listen. Tell us what you’d like to achieve with a new playground and the challenges you may be facing.

Being a school with children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities, we see it as our job to create a play area which is not only fun and sparks imagination, but also supports physical, cognitive and social development. And the only way we can do this, is to fully understand all the kids requirements (hence why we do a lot of listening).  

But before we get to designing, we’ll then start to delve into the details.

We ask details, which include:

• Space and location
• Age and ability of the children, and their development needs
• Must haves, wants and wishes
• Bringing your school and ethos into the design, making it just for you
• Your time frames, when works for you and when doesn’t
• Budgets and funding - don’t worry if you haven’t got this in place just yet, we can help with this (and we’ve got some really useful information and tips on our funding page).

By now, we’ll have a clear understanding of all your requirements which means we can put together the detailed brief. This is a short summary of all our conversations to make sure we both understand each other and everything is noted down. Once we’ve all agreed, time for the design!

By having the conversations at the beginning of the project means we have a clear understanding, then using the brief we’ll draw your initial design and send it through to you.  We’ll work collaboratively to run through the design explaining why we’ve chosen each piece along with how it supports the children. We can, of course, make any amends.

Once you’ve received the final design, this is a great time to build the excitement, not only with the school and children, but the parents and community too. 

We love this part just as much as you, as it brings our conversations to life. 

Everyone is excited with the design and the budget is in place, great! (we’ve got some great information on funding and grants which you may find helpful). Next job is to book in your installation, just to say, we’re very flexible and will do our utmost to work around your time scales. 

It’s at this point we start to build your new playground in our workshop, the more we do before we install means less disruption on the day. We really hope you and the kids can't wait for the big day to arrive as much as we can.

Our install team is heading your way and ready to install your unique playground. All you’ll need to do is point us in the right direction and we’ll get to work. You’ll be surprised at how dynamic we can be, never compromising on safety or quality, we’ll work till the job is done (only stopping for a cup of tea and to answer any questions). Before you know it your dream playground will appear before your very eyes.

And, just like that, we’re done! Enjoy kids!

It’s the big day, the first job our install team will do is to layout your new playground, this is to make sure you’re still happy with it’s location now you’ve seen it in situ.

We’ll get to work, but there is one thing we can’t promise on the day, and that's the children (and maybe some of the teachers) won’t be getting distracted and looking out the window as their new playground comes to life (sorry!).

Before we go, we’ll run through the playground, then kids, it’s over to you.

Now the play area is ready, and the kids are enjoying it with family and friends - we want to make sure it’s enjoyed for many years to come which is where our commercial warranty comes into play. Your new play area comes with a 12 month warranty against all workmanship defects and a 20 year warranty against timber failure, this means complete peace of mind for you for years to come. 

All of our timber has been pressure treated which means it can withstand the elements and can be enjoyed for many years, you can read more about the timber we use here.