Volunteers from energy network SGN spent a day at Shenstone School in Crayford rejuvenating its overgrown forest school space.
The primary school had received funding for the forest school to provide a multi-sensory space to enhance learning about nature and encourage students to engage with the great outdoors. However, the forest school has not been maintained and quickly became overgrown with bramble and weeds.
To support the school, five colleagues from SGN’s Connections and Repair teams carried out a range of tasks on the site to help restore the forest school to its former glory before the start of the new academic year.
The volunteering effort was part of SGN’s Community Action Programme, a scheme which gives its 4,000 people a day of company time each year to help an organisation or charity of their choice.
While their day jobs involve ensuring the gas network is operating safely and reliably, and connecting new properties to it, across the south-east, the volunteers threw themselves into the project by stripping the existing overgrown area down to the ground. The team then tidied some flower beds, created a new path for pupils to walk round the garden, and constructed some sensory boards and mud kitchens.
The project was a labour of love for our Repair Team Manager Danny Cousins, whose son attends the school. Danny said: “I was approached by one of my son’s teachers to help restore the forest school after we had done something similar at a school in Sidcup last year.
“My son really enjoys being outdoors and so it was an easy decision to encourage my colleagues to volunteer their services to help improve the outdoor learning environment at Shenstone School.
“We’re all so pleased we’ve been able to support this project, and we hope the additions to the forest school will be loved by all the pupils, especially my son.”
We would like to thank SGN and all the team who volunteered to spend their CAP day enabling the forest school to be a useable space for our students to learn in once more.
The forest school will support our students’ development by providing a further multi-sensory opportunity for our pupils to immerse themselves in using an outdoor setting. This renewed space will help the children to develop resilience, self-confidence and motivation, as well as providing further chances to work collaboratively with peers, problem solve and have fun!
