Our volunteers transform outdoor spaces at Horsham infant school

Volunteers from our Stakeholder Relations team spent a day at Trafalgar Community Infant School in Horsham last month transforming its outdoor learning and playing spaces.

The infant school was keen to revitalise its outdoor spaces before the start of the new academic year, to enhance outdoor learning and encourage students to engage with the great outdoors.

To support the school’s ambition, eight colleagues from our Stakeholder Relations team carried out a range of tasks on the site as part of our Community Action Programme (CAP). The CAP scheme gives our 4,000 people a day of company time each year to volunteer and help an organisation or charity of their choice.

While their day jobs involve liaising with communities regarding key gas network infrastructure upgrades and repairs across the south-east and Scotland, the volunteers threw themselves into giving parts of the school’s outdoor areas a new lease of life.

The team sanded and painted the school playground’s outdoor learning theatre, tidied and cleared overgrown shrubbery, renewed floor and wall blackboards used for interactive outdoor mathematics activities, and even designed and created a new balance bike track for reception children to enjoy at breaktimes.

The project was a labour of love for our Senior Policy Manager Richard King, whose son attends the school and is a parent governor. Richard said: “Since my son started at Trafalgar Community Infant School a year ago, I’ve been really impressed with the quality of teaching and the fantastic learning environment the school creates for all the pupils, so it was a real pleasure to be able to give something back by helping refresh the outdoor play areas for the children to enjoy upon returning to school in September.”

Trafalgar Community Infant School Deputy Head Teacher Lizzie Cotton said: “We’d like to thank SGN and all the team who volunteered to spend their CAP day helping us to kick-start the new school year with upgraded outdoor spaces used for lessons and playing.

“We’re committed to supporting our students’ development by providing opportunities and experiences beyond the classroom. The new lease of life given to the playground theatre and Reception Garden offer the children further chances to work collaboratively with peers, problem solve and enjoy the great outdoors!

“The children have been so excited to see the changes and have said ‘green is my favourite colour’, ‘it looks like an alien’s invaded’ and ‘I love the racetrack because it’s fun’.”