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Physical Play Equipment in London
📍Broomwood Pre Prep, West London
🗓July 2024
Introduction
Broomwood Hall Schools are a collection of schools based in South West London, with facilities ranging from nurseries for 3- and 4-year-old children, to the prep schools for children aged up to 13. We have worked with the school before at their girls’ preparatory school, so were excited to work with them again.
Area of installation
Brief
Broomwood Pre Prep contacted us to discuss plans for their playground. While meeting with one of our playground consultants, the school has said that they wanted an area for climbing and an area for sports. This had to provide suitable challenge for children aged 4 to 7, while also implementing their PE and sports programme values – development, enjoyment, perseverance, teamwork and humility.
Solution
To ensure there were spaces to the wide range of activities that the school wanted to facilitate, we decided to create a multi-zoned playground – one area would have a climbing frame and pieces of physical play equipment, one area would have a mini sports pitch for football matches and sports games, and, in between, there would be a free space for open-ended play.
Project Details
In the physical play area, we installed pieces of climbing apparatus including a Clamber Stack 1, Climbing Palm Trees, a Zig Zag Balance Beam, a Burma Bridge, and a Log Net Climber. Having a combination of these different types of adventure play products ensures that children are challenged while still providing them with fun and adventurous physical play, as well as encouraging the development of motor skills, strength, agility, balance and coordination. We also installed a trackway in the form of beige Multi-Play Artificial Grass that the children could use as a track for bikes and scooters, while also defining the space. We also added a hopscotch into the trackway to add another play element.
We also used Multi-Play Artificial Grass to create the mini pitch – a space where freestanding goal posts could be added for football matches, or a space that could be used for other ball games when not in use.
We then used Luxury Green Artificial Grass in the space between the two areas, to give a soft and durable surface for the children to take part in group activities, games and open-ended play.
Result
Martin and the design team had the pleasure of revisiting the project after the installation – this is always fantastic as we get to see the children enjoying the playground that we worked so hard on. This is also a valuable experience for us.