Persimmon Yorkshire has helped Lord Deramore’s Primary School in York make significant progress with its Outdoor Play and Learning (OPaL) project, supporting improvements to the school’s outdoor spaces during the summer holidays.

The school is located close to Persimmon’s Minster View development in York, providing a great opportunity for contractors to support a school within one of the communities in which Persimmon are building new homes.

Lord Deramore’s OPaL project focuses on improving the outdoor provision available to children during playtimes and lunchtimes.

With support from Persimmon Yorkshire, the school was able to make significant progress with a number of areas of the project over the summer holidays.

The improvements included paving around the mud kitchen, helping to make the area suitable for children to use throughout the year, as well as a ball pit, which the school expects to be well used and potentially incorporated into lesson time for pupils with additional needs.

Elsewhere in the grounds, tubes were embedded into soil piles to create further opportunities for outdoor play, while the school’s bees are now protected by a smart, secure fenced area.

The work has been extremely well received by the school. Helen Smith from Lord Deramore’s thanked everyone involved and praised the quality of the work carried out by the contractors.

Helen said the school was delighted to have made much more progress with its OPaL project during the holidays than it had originally expected, describing the quality of the work as “excellent”.

The completed improvements will help Lord Deramore’s continue to develop its outdoor play and learning provision, creating more opportunities for pupils to play, learn and make use of the school grounds throughout the year.