Video Transcription

I’m Mr Kershaw from Shelton Infants School, Class 5 which is a year 1 class.

It was really important to get the children out of the class every day because it gives them an opportunity to experience life outside the four walls of the classroom for a start. It helps to engage them, they see it as an exciting opportunity to do their learning in a new environment, a different environment.

Without the canopy when it is wet or particularly hot or sunny we have no opportunity to get the children outside, purely and simply because of weather issues. Now we have got the canopy we can come outside. We are sheltered from the rain and even if it is very sunny we have got opportunity to learn and play in the shade, which is something the children have been doing a lot of learning about recently as part of their Sun Safe Superstar topic that we have been running at the school.

The design of the canopy is perfect for what we need, it provides the ultimate amount of shade that we could hope for in the playground. It is unobtrusive, it doesn’t overtake the area but it provides the children with the opportunity to come outside whatever the weather to enjoy that alternative learning experience.

It is used throughout the day, before school when the parents arrive with the children, again, weather issues mean that they can congregate underneath which is ideal because in the olden days they would just get wet! Equally when it is hot they have got that opportunity to go in the shade. Lunchtimes, when the weather is particularly nice we can let the children have their sandwiches outside. In the past we had the issue of exposing them to too much sunshine and all the difficulties which that would entail, so it has given us the opportunity to use it for the whole of the school day.

It has been brilliant.