Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Straw Classroom

When these nursery children needed another classroom, they built it themselves. Annette Rawstrone hears about an extraordinary project.

The wolf may huff and he may puff, but he won't succeed in blowing Bute Cottage Nursery's straw classroom down. The nursery children know this because they actually helped build it out of sustainable and recycled materials.

With the help of parents, staff and volunteers from the local community in Penarth, near Cardiff, it took two years to erect the round house. The children were involved at every stage. 'Quite often buildings are cordoned off so children can't see what is happening, but our children helped lay the foundations, build the walls and insulate them,' says headteacher Ceri Hoffrock.

She believes the building process has provided big educational benefits. 'We could have built an ordinary extension or used a temporary building that would have arrived in a day, but the children wouldn't have had the whole process leading up to it. They now understand that building a house does not just involve walls - the land has to be prepared and foundations need laying too,' she says.

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