Success in Spades
It doesn’t seem to have been a year ago that staff, students and Creative Partnerships representatives met to plot out the coming year’s plans for the first phase of the Mount Gilbert Change School project. The school wanted to enhance and develop their outdoor space to include an all weather classroom and a tyre park facility for play and fitness training (the tyre park was installed by the company who provide similar training facilities for army commandos.)
The school had a piece of overgrown ground near the staff car park which was earmarked for transformation. It featured a tree in memory of a former pupil; sadly the tree had become choked and overgrown with ivy, the current pupils felt they wanted to restore the memorial, make it more prominent and turn the area into a place for reflection as well as use it as an outdoor learning space.
The pupils were involved in decision making about how the project should proceed right from the beginning and helped to choose the two landscape practitioners who were contracted to work with the pupils to turn the area into a beautiful new space. One of the pupils on the interview panel who selected the practitioners (Mark and Peter) said after hearing the response to one of his questions, ‘I know you’re speaking words, but what you’re saying is music to my ears.’ The practitioners were duly appointed.
Mount Gilbert is an EBD (Educational and behavioural difficulties) school, staff and practitioners who work with them have to have a special blend of patience, humour, kindness and empathy. The fact that both practitioners had these qualities in spades (pun intended) was one of the reasons the project succeeded so well.
It wasn’t all plain sailing - the groundcover of ivy proved far more difficult to get rid of than first thought; during the clearing a 300 million year old tree fern (from the Carboniferous period) was discovered and had to be assessed by the Shropshire Geological Society before being incorporated into the finished garden. The job was not just about restructuring, renewing and making good but cajoling sometimes reluctant pupils to get stuck in.
However, once the work was under way the practitioners reported high levels of commitment from the pupils who gained new practical skills and enjoyed the freedom of being outside contributing to a facility they can use for years to come. The memorial to Colin Foster is enclosed by a simple stone circle and sits prominently in the new space. During the opening ceremony the tarpaulin was put up to show visitors including parents what the outdoor classroom looks like. Many native bulbs and plants have been planted so that in Spring 2010 a corner of Mount Gilbert will be a riot of colour and fragrance.
