Monday 2 May 2016

Funding Win for Nature Strip Playspace!

Thank you very much from all at Sciennes to parent Colin Sim for all his efforts in this successful application for funding.

We are delighted to let you know that we have won funding that will let us further extend the play area in the nature strip opposite the school.

The money will let us build a willow tunnel structure in the grassy area of the nature strip, next to where the natural play area was built last summer. This will provide an exciting learning opportunity for children – from growing the willow to using it as an adventure play area. The new feature will also be open for our local community to use, in the same way as the nature strip play space is just now.

The Friends of Sciennes School, our registered charity, won £2,310 of funding thanks to the support of our local community at the South Centra£ Decides event, held on Saturday (30 April). The City of Edinburgh Council’s South Central Neighbourhood Partnership ran the event.

People aged over eight years old were able to vote for the projects they thought should be funded. There were 21 community projects seeking funding, so local people had some hard choices to make to decide which was their favourites. We are therefore very grateful that we were lucky enough to be one of the eleven winners.

We would like to thank the many people who supported our project – from our Sciennes' pupils and their families, to former pupils from both a few years ago to a few decades ago, together with pupils from other schools and neighbours who live close to our school. We also want to thank Diarmuid from class p1C, his parents and Angela Christie our Business Manager for their help in applying and representing our project at the event.

Whilst we are excited to have our new willow structure planted as early as possible, we are going to have to wait until much later in the year. Because willow should only be planted when it is out of its growing season, it is likely going to be November or December until we can have our new tunnel structure.

The living willow tunnel should form a leafy den and shady play area. When first planted, and during winter, willow looks like lifeless flexible stems, but will grow quickly into a leafy green structure. A number of primary schools have been successfully growing willow tunnels in their playgrounds. You can see some examples in photographs below.

We will of course keep you updated on our planting plans and look forward to our children enjoying another development of our playground.

Colin Sim, Parent Council Communications Group 

Where the willow tunnel will go:




Giffnock Primary School, East Renfrewshire – tunnel installed February 2015 by East Ayrshire Woodlands:




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