The pre-primary and kindergarten students at Greenfields Primary were greeted with an exciting new nature playground on their return to school last week.
The playground, which has been a year in planning and installation, is part of a growing trend in nature play sweeping education centres around Western Australia.
Greenfields Primary School teacher Annette Sandry said the equipment encourages challenge and creativity students can’t get from the old plastic and metal equipment.
“This is what kids should be doing, they should be taking risks in natural environments,” Ms Sandry said.
“If they’re going over uneven surfaces, it makes their brain work better because they have to learn how to balance and it’s more challenging than on the older equipment.”
The playground, which cost the school about $50,000 from the school budget as well as some P&C contribution, was enabled by the funding allocated to early childhood facilities in independent public schools.
“Rather than spending it on resources and stuff, because we’ve got plenty of those, we thought we need to get something done with our yard, because all we had before was the sandpits that came with the building six and a half years ago, and [plastic and metal] play equipment that’s been there for years,” Ms Sandry said.
The new additions to Greenfield Primary’s pre-primary and kindergarten area include an extended bike track, natural wood balance beams, a water pump, logs, extra plants, an outdoor ‘classroom’, and a ‘campsite’ made of logs, sticks and stones.
Ms Sandry said although the students had started out cautious on the new play equipment, they had quickly warmed to it.
“It’s amazing how many of them are confident already about going along these things quite quickly,” she said.
“It’s exciting, we’ll spend more time out here now.”
