Outdoor Space Project

Young Carers Outside Space Area

Christ Church Academy is developing a brand new project supporting our amazing Young Carers who are an invisible and vulnerable part of our school.

We are the only school locally who have a dedicated support network, and are extremely proud that we are the only school in the Stone district who have achieved the Bronze award with Young Carers in schools.

We have a great outdoor space that would be perfect to develop and maximise its potential for the benefit of our Young Carers. Our exciting goal is to create an outside classroom space with raised beds to the side in which to grow plants and flowers. As part of this scheme, fresh cut flowers could be grown and delivered by our students to churches and residents of local care homes.

May 2023

The young carers and gardeners have been asking if the pond could be reinstated as part of the garden development for some time. We have used some money from the Co-op bid to make this happen. Hopefully the new marginal planting area will encourage wildlife to return to the pond.  It is looking great....

  

A  new addition to the garden area in January 2022 was our greenhouse!

 

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Not only will this space support the mental health and wellbeing of our Young Carers, but also of our entire school cohort. We have groups of vulnerable students and those with additional need. Students with Autism, SEN need, children requiring therapy for a disability, disadvantaged students to name but a few.

This project will also enable our pupils to reach out and engage with the wider Stone community, building positive relationships and foundations.

As you can see, this project will enable us to create lasting links - it is easy to see that the wider Stone community will benefit and take this wonderful journey with us, from children and extended families to our wonderful local care homes and churches.

We are currently fundraising in the local area.  We are also looking for the following items to help us to create our outside classroom space and turn it into a therapeutic learning space for our pupils.

• Outside classroom

• Raised planting beds (wood to create them)

• Storage shed

• Poly tunnel style greenhouse

• Wooden composter (wood to create one)

• Gardening tools (spades, forks, trowels, dibbers, gardening gloves, watering cans etc)

• Compost

• Seeds & plants- seed trays and assorted growing paraphernalia

• Wooden benches

• Wood treatment (and fence painting brushes) to prolong the life of beds etc.

• Pond lining etc.

• Time and labour from those with the necessary skills for ground work or building

This is how the garden area looked at the beginning of the project!

We hope that you can support us in any way with this worthy endeavour and look forward to hearing from you. 
If you have any questions regarding our project, please do not hesitate to contact me on 01785 334900 or 

d.farnell@cca.staffs.sch.uk