Mud pies and muck are back on the menu for pupils enjoying outdoor learning at a Shrewsbury primary school.

Persimmon Homes West Midlands answered a plea for help to remodel the “mud kitchen” at St Giles’ Primary School in Portland Crescent after the old one fell apart.

School business manager Rebecca Chew, said: “Our old mud pie kitchen was falling apart and we cheekily asked Persimmon Homes if we could have some old pallets from their nearby development in Weir Hill to build a new one, but they came back with an even better offer and said they would make it for us. We sent some ideas over of how we would like it to be and then we took delivery of the most phenomenal new kitchen."

“Persimmon has really created something superb – it has reduced the staff to tears. We have a fantastic new unit, adorned with a stag, our school emblem, and it incorporates a sink which has its own unique history. It was donated to the school by the late John Kelsall, the father of our teacher Kim Kelsall, before he passed away. We are so delighted with the new kitchen and the children will enjoy playing with it as part of their outdoor learning experience. We are all so grateful.”

Adrian France, contracts manager for Persimmon Homes West Midlands, took the project on himself: “This is certainly the first time I have been briefed to create a mud pie kitchen for a customer. "I had been a carpenter for 17 years prior to my 19-year service with Persimmon so I decided due to their wish list I would make it myself."

"It was a nice task to get stuck into but reminded me how old my joints really are! It was a pleasure to see the school so happy and the kids’ faces were priceless. Hopefully they will have many years of fun learning to enjoy playing outside and getting a little bit messy mixing up batches of mud pies. It is great to give back to the communities in which we are building.”