Parent power: making our children’s playground safe.. and lovely too!

When Gossops Green Primary School had a meeting about an Ofsted report, one of the parents, went in support of her five year old son who is a pupil at the school. Who was this parent? Why, Shelley, the founder of the Crawley Happy Times of course! Shelley asked Mrs Martin, Head Mistress, why the playground had been shut for the year her [Shelley's] son, Logan, had attended in the reception year.  The playground in question was for the reception classes; years one and two, but of course, being shut meant the young children had to play with the older ones (for the morning and afternoon breaks) who may play ‘harder’ than the little ones.

Mrs. Martin explained that the playground required some work to make it safe but they had run out of money due to excessive costs on various serious issues that had occured at the school. Shelley, being a local businesswoman,  pointed out that she may know a few people (including herself) who would be willing to give up their time to help these children, if they were also able to raise some funds to pay for the necessary materials.

Shelley never one to welch on an offer, went to speak to her friends David and Tina Pring of D&T Properties to see if they would consider their time for free.  David and Tina were more than willing to help out.  The next step was to raise the money. Shelley had wanted to lose weight for some time, so decided to go on a sponsored diet to raise at least £1000 by shedding 3 stone. Shelley then wrote a letter to her local Council representative, Keith Blake, and got a reply from Henry Smith, Leader of West Sussex County Council, who explained it was more his jurisdiction and that he would see if he could arrange a meeting to discuss the possibility of funding.

In June, Shelley met with Leigh Houlgrave and Peter Proudley in the school offices alongside Mrs. Martin and Tina. It was agreed the council would fund the project up to £2000 which would go with the £1000 Shelley had committed to raising through her sponsored diet. This was more than enough money to get the playground up to scratch and open for the children’s return to school in September.

August came and the work was under way.  David and John of D&T Properties erected a wonderful wooden fence all the way around the playground, preventing any chance of the children playing on the concrete banks, safe from harm. Whilst David and John worked hard on this, Shelley and Tina set about painting the snakes and ladders and number games by hand so the children could see them properly and could play on them.  They were so faded in places they were virtually non-existent!  They even had help from Miss. Crawley (Natalie Fagence), who took time out to come and help. There was plenty of help in the form of our children too.  Logan & Stacey (Shelley’s son and daughter) and Lilly (Tina’s daughter) both added their artistic skills with a paint brush. Shelley’s friend Rebecca Fuller was happy to help as her son is attending in September.

The last finishing touches came from Martin of Toyne Gardening. Martin, a self employed gardener, donated his time to sort out the the shrubbery and the weeds and made the flower bed look a lot more inviting than the tangled mess which had presented itself previously. Shelley was there too, busily trimming the hedges around the top, sweeping up and generally making the playground look presentable for the children.

The end result is a fantastic playground with brightly coloured games, clean and tidy plants and, more importantly, a safe area for the young ones to play and learn freely without any chance of harm. We spoke to Mrs Martin who said “Shelley should be really proud of what she has accomplished here.  Without Shelley’s determination and help from her friends, this would not have happened.  It looks wonderful and the children love it”.

Shelley has yet to complete her diet, but has just finished four weeks with Sussex Bootcamp and is feeling and looking great. Shelley is about to embark on another four weeks’ training regime on the 7th September at Hazelwick School.  If anyone would like to join Shelley, please visit the website or call Ben Davis on 07832110311.  We will be speaking more about that in the next couple of days. Please keep your eyes out for Shelley’s progress.

Crawley Happy Times would like to thank all the people who helped Shelley in this project. Shelley went on to tell us that if there are any other projects that need her attention, ask someone else, as she will be on holiday!

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 17:19 and is filed under About, News, Shelley, Staff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.