A YORK school is celebrating a pupil-led revamp of the front of its premises.
Dringhouses Primary School in St Helen’s Road will open its new Eco Sensory Space on Friday afternoon (October 6).
Project organisers say the area has been transformed and will facilitate learning, support connections to nature and promote well-being, as well as integrating with the school curriculum.
The idea began in early July 2022 with £500 raised via a bun sale and a bunch of pupil designs for the proposed area.
Recommendations were led by the school council, which is made up of pupils, one teacher, and a now former teacher, Clare Smith.
Clare said: “The children handed in designs and the council chose from the collection.
“They were full of wonderful hope and ideas about raising money to make the front a better place.”
She also said that pupils "absolutely love it".
Clare said: “It’s so sweet. We’ve got one little boy, who every day is there watering and chatting about it.
“His speech has come on so well.
“They’re very, very, proud of it.
“The teachers love walking past it and sitting in the space.”
School council member Bea said: “We all decorated a poster of what we wanted the garden to look like. We took ideas from all of them and most of them had a bench in it.
“I had this idea of making rainbow benches because we celebrate Pride.”
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The school had limited outdoor space for its 310 pupils, with very few green areas.
A playing field across the road served for PE lessons only.
Clare said the vision was clear – to create a bio-diverse, eco-friendly space in front of the building that children could access daily.
It was decided that the school would carry out planting, including adaptable mobile planters with chalkboard surfaces and a solar-powered water fountain.
To support teaching and learning, a science and geography board would be built, along with rain catchers and thermometers.
Once the school council decided on the course of action, local businesses provided sponsorship and Clare said the community made donations or contributed time, their skills, and resources.
A parent who worked for Aviva said that the company could match funding if it was an eco-project and Clare said that ideas already met the criteria for the support that was offered.
This contribution and donations took the project funding to over £10,000.
One piece of advice included the best way to hide what Clare said were three ‘quite ugly’ sheds.
She added: "One of our lovely teaching assistants David White – he’s a really keen gardener.
“A lot of parents said ‘we love David’s garden when they walk past it to school, would he be interested?’
“So I bribed him with some cake and got him involved.”
Some members of the original council who left the school last year returned over the summer to help with the digging.
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