Mayor of Northampton on hand to open primary school's new environmentally friendly outdoor classroom

A brand new outdoor classroom was opened by the Mayor and Mayoress at a Northampton primary school this week.

Councillor Dennis Meredith and his wife Rona Meredith visited Simon de Senlis on Tuesday (March 28) to open the classroom, which has been built next to the shcool’s forest school area.

The whole school applauded as The Mayor cut the red ribbon to open the classroom and a rousing three cheers came from the 430 children and staff as they watched on.

Joanne Fennelly headteacher said: “Outdoor learning is such a valuable component of the curriculum at Simon de Senlis, where children can develop their cooperation and collaboration skills, along with their problem solving and reasoning skills.

"Our outdoor curriculum includes learning within our forest school, where our children and staff engage in a wide range of learning, developing personal and social skills, improving language and communication and showing a deeper understanding of the world around them.

"Our new outdoor classroom will allow the whole school curriculum to be brought into the outdoors, whatever the weather, from geography to science, art, music, english and PE. Our whole school will benefit from this wonderful new space, and we can’t wait to start using it.”

All our classrooms are named after inspirational people who have “made a dent in the universe” and the school’s new classroom will be named The Queen Elizabeth II classroom.

The outdoor classroom is also environmentally friendly with solar panels and a wind turbine to generate power and a water collection system to store rainwater to water plants within the school grounds.

Jen de Board assistant head added: “Research tells us that learning in the outdoors, increases health and wellbeing along with a wider environmental awareness. Our outdoor classroom will allow all children to explore the outdoor environment and develop a connection with nature. Through this, we know that a fantastic range of skills will be developed, along with curriculum knowledge.”

The whole school applauded as The Mayor cut the red ribbon to open the classroom and a rousing three cheers came from the 430 children and staff as they watched the grand event.

After the ribbon cutting, tea and cakes were enjoyed in the library.