Extreme Makeover: Schoolyard Edition
On a bright but chilly Sunday in August – just before the last lockdown – South Featherston School was alive to the
industry of whānau, staff and kids getting muddy, hauling river stones and planting saplings and shrubs in the new Sensory
Garden outside the Senior Room. Designed and directed on the weekend by botanical genius Lola Walker, it will be an amazing space once it fully grows into itself. It’s a real taonga for our school and the kids, not just for the current crop but for those who will attend in years to come, too.
As befitting a semi-rural school, Nature is our eternal teacher aide. An EnviroSchool since 2016, our small kura’s philosophy and many of our curriculum activities centre on learning how to live in harmony with the natural world and how to be good kaitiaki of our environment.
We have also had our playground resurfaced with fresh woodchips and a couple of super-popular ground-level trampolines are now in action. The garden, the playground uplift, the new sheds, a new perimeter fence, the tramps – all this has been accomplished with a lot of love, time and effort from Callum Lord in particular, our schoolyard’s patron saint.
