Enabling environments outdoors: Uh-uh! Mud!

 Our deputy Mary Slater had the idea to base our garden on We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and the children just love it.

In the story, the family encounters every kind of terrain. Our garden reflects that:

- Uh-uh! Grass! We have planted our own long 'swishy-swashy' grass, but we've also added unusual plants that are smelly and spiky to encourage discussion.

- Uh-uh! A river! Our builders created a rill or stream, with a pipe connected to a tap nearby, so we can let the water trickle into the 'river' and down to the muddy area.

- Uh-uh! Mud! The 'river' water creates the mud, while a soakaway keeps the mud at the right consistency and gives the children all the 'thick oozy mud' they could wish for.

- Uh-uh! A forest! We have planted trees and ferns and added logs that attract lots of bugs.

- Uh-uh! A snowstorm! Our 'snowy' area is completely white - white flowers, white gravel, even white paving stones.

- Uh-uh! A cave! At the moment, our 'cave' is an arbour, but November is the start of the willow-planting season, so we are going to plant a willow dome to create a better cave.

Open ended

The children helped right from the start. They were involved in the measuring, planting and taking photographs. They have free-flow access to a stone walled garden at the front of the building and also come into the Bear Hunt garden every day.

Although the garden is based on the Bear Hunt, and includes signs with extracts from the story, the space is completely open-ended. The children are free to play and explore and can tend our vegetable patch, which is also in this part of the garden. Yet they never tire of the story; they love to tell it again and again and to tell it to children who are new to the pre-school.

The garden cost £10,000, which we paid for with an Awards for All grant, so we now have a space that inspires children's curiosity and imagination. Included in the funding was a £250 grant from Family Investments to create a 'communication friendly space', and I think our Bear Hunt garden manages to achieve that.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

The book written by Michael Rosen (now children's laureate) and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury was first published by Walker Books in 1989, when it won the Smarties Book Prize and was Highly Commended for the Kate Greenaway Medal. It has since become a children's classic, selling more than 3.5 million copies worldwide.

Further information:

- Since 1994 the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded over £4bn to more than 26,000 projects that enable people to celebrate, look after and learn more about our heritage. Visit www.hlf.org.uk

- Awards for All is a Lottery grants scheme for local communities. Visit www.awardsforall.org.uk

- The Onyx Environmental Trust provides grants of up to £1,500,000 for projects that are located within ten miles of an Onyx landfill operation. Visit: www.onyxenvtrust.org.uk

- FamilyInvestments, www.familyinvestments.co.uk

LINKS TO EYFS GUIDANCE
EE 3.1 The Learning Environment
L&D 4.1 Play and Exploration
L&D 4.2 Active Learning
L&D 4.3 Creativity and Critical Thinking

Barn conversion

We were a 'packaway' pre-school based in a church, but I wanted us to have our own building, so when I spotted a derelict barn in the middle of a local park, I decided to apply to the council to convert it.

The building was council-owned and Grade 2 listed, but had been lying unused and vandalised for 50 years. The roof had fallen in and it was completely derelict. Lots of people had tried to buy the barn in the past, but they all seemed to hit problems with permission and funding.

I applied for Heritage Lottery Fund money and was granted £350,000. I then had to raise match funding, which included £25,000 from Brighton Council and a grant of £30,000 from the Onyx Environmental Trust. In all, I raised over £500,000. I got very good at filling in forms. The money is there - you just have to try very hard to get it.

It took us three years to secure the funding and planning permission and another eight months for the conversion. I just kept pushing, and Heritage Lottery said we were the only building to come in on time.

There were some problems along the way - like deathwatch beetles! - and trying to meet both Ofsted and English Heritage requirements was a challenge. But we've got a great building at the end of it, including toilets in what were the stalls.

The children feel ownership of the building, as they know its history and were involved in the conversion from the start. This gives them a real sense of time and place and belonging.

The building was an old threshing barn, so at one end we have a big, high door, where the loaded carts came in, and at the other a smaller low door, where the empty carts went out.

Because of local demand for childcare, we've continued the old 34-place pre-school in the church. The new one in the barn is registered for 30 places. Some of the children go to both pre-schools and their key worker follows with them. We also run an after-school club and offer a holiday playscheme.

Boomerang Kids is a registered charity. I've lived in Saltdean since I was 11 years old and I'm 40 now, and I really wanted to give something back to the local community.

Helen Hicks spoke to Ruth Thomson.