Community Trust provide largest grant ever to Pensford School.
Andrew Hillman, Chairman and Sue Osborne Trustee of The Pensford, Publow and the Stantons Community Trust presented a cheque of £7500 to Warrick Barton Headteacher at Pensford School representing the largest grant ever awarded . The children of Pensford School were very eager to get climbing following the long awaited installation of a new challenging climbing structure funded by the Community Trust grant and installed in their playground during the Easter holidays.
Warrick Barton explained that, “here at Pensford School we are always looking for more opportunities to develop our pupils’ outdoor learning. With ‘Happiness’ as our first school value, we always focus on children’s personal and social development. So the installation of our new climbing equipment has helped with both of those aims. The physical and mental benefits to children of outdoor play and learning are clear to us and we are delighted that the Community Trust have supported us in this way.”
Sue Osborne commented that,“the installation has made an amazing difference to the play space. It’s great that it includes some climbing risk challenge to the children, encouraging them to calculate what they are capable of achieving themselves in a safe way – this has certainly been missing in play space for a decade if not two!”
In making the choice to provide a more challenging and exciting piece of equipment it is not something that every child can use immediately from a very young age. Mr Barton went on to say, “ we were very keen to give our Pensford pupils something different and more exciting to play on and it has been a great pleasure to see the children relishing the challenge of different ways to climb. The climbing frame is designed for pupils in Year 2 upwards, so Year 1 will be looking forward to September when they will be allowed to use it. Reception have another year beyond that but they can enjoy the many other opportunities for creative play around the school and their turn will come.”
Only one year group at a time use the climbing frame given the stretch and challenge, and always under staff supervision.
Andrew Hillman congratulated Mr Barton and school business manager Sarah Millican on driving this particular part of the playground project as the logistics of the installation were certainly challenging. Andrew also paid tribute to the School PTA who have been working hard to help enhance the play space over time including a new tarmac and purple path and new football posts.

Andrew went on to extend thanks the Community Trust 100 Club members, “ our vibrant 100 Club raises money for the Community Trust which enables investment in our community villages for the benefit of all. Without their generosity these sort of projects may never get past the idea stage!”