February 2010

The latest News on our Supergrounds project

Following our January Supergrounds meeting the project has picked up pace and we are starting to see more visible signs of progress.

One of our first tasks was to mark the lines for our new Football and Netball pitch on the school playground. We ordered some spraypaint and managed to borrow a line marking machine from the High School. Various groups of children from around the school were then involved in measuring, calculating and marking the pitch out in chalk. After this we used the line marking machine to draw the lines whilst plenty of volunteers were on hand to make sure we kept it straight! It took all our problem solving skills to decide how to draw the semi-circles, but eventually we struck on the idea of using a netball post as a giant protractor and managed to draw a smooth curve! Many thanks to everyone involved with this.

The children were also involved in moving tyres from the grassy area at the bottom of the school up to the top playgground. These currently serve as boundary markers for the various Supergrounds zones, and are also proving very popular with the children to play in. Well done to everyone for their hard work on what was a cold and snowy day!

Now that the new lines have been marked on the football pitch it was time to begin construction of the new goals. Angus MacIntyre has very kindly organised and donated some wood which has been passed onto John O'Neil at the High School. Some of the older children spent an afternoon assisting Mr. O'Neil in measuring and cutting the wood in preperation for mounting in the playground - well done and thank you to all involved, we look forward to seeing them in place!

We are hoping to provide each of the classes with new 'Planters' in the playground. With this in mind we received a very generous donation from Mr. MacKellaig who used his Fork Lift truck to deliver four giant Buoys from the Mallaig Docks. Fortunately many of the children were on hand to help him unload, and we hope to cut these up before decorating them and filling them with soil to plant in.

We also received a generous donation of top soil which was very kindly delivered to the school by Simon Weston - a big thank you to him for that. The top soil was then shovelled into place by Chris and his Mother (who was here on holiday!) so that we have now have a lovely flower bed. Planting in this has already begun! We still need more top soil to fill the second flower bed and our new planters, but are hoping to secure this shortly.

This month we also wrote to all of our neighbours surrounding the school in order to inform them of what we were doing. Here you can see the children writing and delivering the letters.

We are also progressing with the plans for the outdoor classroom. We currently have various possibilities under consideration, and the Supergrounds committee are hoping to make a decision shortly in order that construction can commence. We will of course keep you updated!