Dear Wattle Park Primary School Community,
The Building and Grounds Committee is co-ordinating the creation a Grounds Master Plan as a blueprint for the future development of the grounds of WPPS. Now that our new buildings are all nearly complete, the time is right to put in place a plan to further develop one of the schools greatest assets,.. our 3.4 hectares of school grounds. The proposal, scope and small investment required have been approved by the School's Finance Committee and by School Council.
The process to develop the School's Grounds Master Plan will occur from now until the end of Term 2 next year and will involve much consultation with all of the School Community to get the concepts right.
The broad vision that we have for the school is to create a "Country School in the City". But we need your help and input into how we could build on this vision for the school grounds.
We need you to fill in the survey and provide your opinion of the importance of:
* Extending Classroom learnings into the grounds;
* Developing structured and unstructured play opportunties
* Making the best use of the space for sporting activities
* Making the best use of the space for creative (artistic) activities
* Developing the identity of the school, based in its indigenous, farming and education heritage.
* Developing meaningful Interactions with local residents (particularly Cameron Close)
* Ensuring efficient, effective and safe pick-up drop off
* Play areas sheltered by trees
* Improve water run-off management to remove muddy areas after rainfall.
* Developing an external identity for the school along its many borders we can be proud of
* Maximising student safety
* Developing the grounds so Teachers (particularly while on yard duty) can be effective in their roles
* Protecting existing features school grounds (eg: Twisty Tree, the huts) which are working well already
* Continuation of the grounds development consistent with the school's plan to become a 5 star environmentally sustainable school
Through the process, input from the school community will be obtained in a number of ways, including online surveys (such as this one) capturing the input of parents, teachers and students. As draft plans are drawn-up in line with the school community's input, they will be displayed to the school community with a further opportunity to give feedback.
We don't envisage that it will be possible to meet everyone's preferences, but we are confident that collectively we can build a School Grounds Master Plan that we can all be proud of.
We have engaged a local Landscape Architect (a mother of two primary school age children in the area) to help us pull the Grounds Master Plan together. The Landscape Architect has already been working with Gayle and has visited the school to understand the learning practices being used and to also see the Grounds being used by Children at lunch time to see how the children currently use the grounds to play .
Please take the time to complete this quick survey. This survey intends to catch the broader aspects of what features or aspects of the school grounds you think are most important. More detailed surveys will follow as the designs are progressed. Parents could help children work through the survey.
We need your response to the survey ASAP (sorry that this falls in the Christmas rush, but it only takes 5min).
Thanks in advance for your input and your engagement in what we think will be an exciting project for the benefit of our children.
if you require further information please email us at groundsmasterplan@gmail.com
Kind Regards,
Brook Carter and Brent Dankesreither
(on behalf of the Building & Grounds Committee)
groundsmasterplan@gmail.com