Volunteers transform St Hardulph’s Primary School’s outside space

Volunteers transform St Hardulph’s Primary School’s outside space

A group of Breedon volunteers worked on a fabulous project at St Hardulph’s C of E Primary School at Breedon on the Hill in August 2022. The school had an unused and unloved piece of land that could be transformed into a great space for the children to sit quietly at playtime or as an extension to the classroom for reading and story time.

In stepped a group of willing volunteers, including a local gardener to transform the space. Simon from Whittington Landscaping cleared the area and built a timber structure that created 2 seating areas with raised planters. Once complete, our Breedon volunteers moved in and we put 4 tonnes of pea gravel into the planters, 1 tonne of Shierglas Grey stone, 1 tonne of top soil and filled it up with 10 bags of compost. We worked with Swarkestone Nursery and selected a range of plants that were interesting, tactile, colourful and fragrant to complete the transformation.

We also tidied up the outside area that the Reception and Year 1 children use by removing dead ivy, cleaning the toys, planting some fresh herbs, sweeping up leaves and dirt and getting it ready for the new term starting.

It’s great to be able to make a difference to this local school. Headteacher Mrs Ellis was overwhelmed and moved to tears when we unveiled the garden. She couldn’t believe that people gave their time to do this for her school. She was really excited to show the staff and children when they returned after the summer holidays.

 Collectively Breedon colleagues gave almost 30 hours of their time to this project.