Friends of Middleforth Primary School - Case Study

Middleforth Primary School is situated in Middleforth on the outskirts of Preston in the Borough of South Ribble. It is a pretty average size primary school with around 250 pupils.

Middleforth School is fortunate in having quite extensive grounds but over the years they have not really been used to their full potential

The Friends of Middleforth School was set up in the 1980's in order to assist the school and the local community in a variety of different ways. It is quite and active group which organises a range of small fundraising and social events such as school disco's, summer fair etc.

What we want to do?

The aim of our project is to create a community garden within the school grounds. This garden would provide a quiet haven for members of the local community and groups who make use of the school grounds and buildings, as well as a valuable nature area and outdoor classroom for the school and it's pupils. We plan to improve access to the site by providing an all weather fully accessible path. A new pond and dipping platform will be created which will enable people to have safe easy access to the wildlife to be found in such a feature. We would also like to include a significant environmental arts element to the project in the form of a series of boulders which will have designs chosen by the community carved on to them by an artist.

In addition to this we see the following community and environmental aims as being important:

The community aims of this project are:

• To encourage more parents (and the wider community) to become actively involved in the school.
• To engage all users (such as scouts, beavers, weight watchers etc) of the school grounds and buildings in a common project
• To build social capital, through getting parents, staff and pupils to work together on this project. Many of the parents would welcome this opportunity to get to know others in the area through a project like this.
• To provide a quality environment for play and learning for our children.
• To provide teachers at the school with additional ways of delivering the curriculum in an interesting and stimulating way.
• To share our experiences with other schools through documenting our project on Lancashire County Councils Web Site.

The environmental aims are:

• To create and maintain a variety of wildlife habitats from ponds and hedgerows to an organic grounds.
• To build a community garden/ quiet seating area.
• To raise awareness of environmental issues both during the construction of the project and through it's use as a community garden and teaching aid.

What we have done so far

The project started about 18 months ago (in 2002) when staff at the school and members of the friends of group started to look at the school grounds and if there was anything we could do to make them more usable.

We started off by holding an initial meeting with staff, pupils and members of the friends of group to brainstorm ideas. We came up with a huge list of things we would like to do.

What we decided to do was for everyone to go away and think some of the ideas through and to collect magazine cuttings, photographs make sketches etc so that we could put together some ideas boards. This helped us to visulise what we were all talking about.

Once we had a list of ideas for developing the grounds we decided to try and prioratise them, we recognised the fact that we couldn't do everything given limited resources. So we split up in to smaller groups and discussed the various ideas through and came up with a list of priorities.

All of this was very time consuming and seemed to involve a lot of what felt at times like unproductive meetings.

Once we had a list of things we wanted to do we started to try and cost them up to give us some idea of how much money we needed to raise.

We then started to apply for funding for the project. It was at this point that we realised we needed to get some sort of master plan drawn up showing what it was we wanted to do in a visual format. This design has proved to be very useful both for raising funding and for explaining to people what it is we are trying to do.

Our first success with the funding was £500 from the Green Partnership Award scheme swiftly followed by £300 from Volvo PEP and then £2500 from Lancashire Small Sites Reclamation Scheme.

At last after nearly a year of planning and meetings we had enough funding to actually start the work on site.

We affiliated the group to the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) so that we could take advantage of their insurance package and borrow tools from them.

We then put up posters and during July 2003 we had two weekends where over 40 families came out and worked on a voluntary basis to construct a section of footpath and the outdoor seating area.

Some of the parents ran a sort of mini-play scheme for the children so that other adults could come and help with the practical work.

It is worth noting that having this many volunteers turn up is great but it does need quite a lot of organization beforehand. Ensuring that everyone has enough work to do and knows what it is they are doing and how to do it safely is quite a task. It is worth allocating at least one person the job of overseeing this aspect of the project on the day. We marked everything out using stakes and spray paint the evening before so that people could see what needed to go where.

Over the course of these two weekends we constructed an outdoor seating are and a footpath that opens the area up for use in all weathers.

At this point we ran out of money and had to start applying for more funding. The fact that we had already carried out some work and now had proof of community involvement together with a good base plan helped us to get a People and Places Grant of just over £9000. This money should enable us to complete our plans.

What's gone well

• Good community involvement
• Reasonable success with applying for grants
• Time spent planning the project early on was useful
• Getting a plan drawn up early on in the project is a useful communication aid.
• Good range of skills within the community group, we had carpenters, builders etc who came out and helped us.
• Affiliation with BTCV was useful for insurance and tools loan.
• Organising activities for the children thus freeing up the adults to come and work on the project worked well.
• Several parents who didn't know each other before the action days are now good friends.

What's not gone so well

• Early planning stages were difficult as we were in a bit of a chicken and egg situation, as we didn't know what our budget might be. So we decided what we wanted to do first and then looked at the budget.
• Fundraising is very time consuming, there is quite a long gap between getting the original ideas sorted out and actually getting the funding together to carry them out. It has taken us 18 months to get the funding we need.
• We have been turned down by a variety of funders, this is quite demoralising but work put in to each bid is not wasted as it can normally be adapted for the next one.

The Future

Over the weekend of the 5th and 6th of July we are hoping to construct a seating area for the children.

We shall be working from 10.00am until about 4.00pm on both the Saturday and the Sunday. The work will involve some digging, pushing a wheelbarrow (better than a morning at the gym!) and some basic joinery.

Some of the parents are going to organise some games and activities for the children, so you could bring them along, let them play with their friends for an hour or two while you help us.

If you do come please bring any tools you have which might be of use, in particular a spade and a wheelbarrow would be of use.

This seating area is the first of several improvements we hope to make to the school grounds over the next couple of years. Future projects will include:

• A new pond and dipping platform
• A geology trail
• Wildflower area

If you would like some more information call Tony Lund on 01772 533439, mobile 07887 830881 or e-mail me at tony.lund@env.lancscc.gov.uk