OUR OWN BIG BUILD

So when our Galliford Try site manager Ben mentioned entering Honor’s Competition, a competition run by Considerate Contractors, I do not think he had quite appreciated how aspirational we are at Bishop Chavasse. So when he informed us that the competition involved the children designing and making a building out of
recycled materials he naturally assumed we would produce a ‘Blue Peter’ style creation out of cardboard boxes and sticky tape, poor Ben had certainly not envisaged us wanting to create a sustainable piece of play equipment, namely Tonbridge
Castle made from recycled wooden pallets or that we would want members of the Galliford Try team to support the children by teaching them how to use hammers, nails, sanding blocks and saws.

However, aim big we did and so on Thursday the 12th of November the children designed and created their castle, sawing, nailing and sanding the wood to create the fabulous play castle we now have on the school playground.

That in itself was a tremendous achievement, but that alone is not why the day was so incredibly special. What brought adults to tears and made the day so extra special was the vision we had whilst looking at the hive of building activity throughout the day. The children we relearning incredibly complex new skills supported by an amazing community of volunteers. These volunteers ranged from parents, Gary our site man, Ben, Matt and builders from Galliford Try, Jenn Harris from the Department for Education, Year 1 carpentry students and their tutors from West Kent College, staff family members, Kevin, a retired carpenter from Rosewell House and residents from residents from Barnes Lodge. As always with school community events, we also
welcomed, members of the Bishop Chavasse LGB and the Tenax Schools Trust to share this amazing experience with us. No building project could have been better supported; we truly celebrated being a school with the community at its heart and whether we win the competition or not, we certainly are all winners at Bishop Chavasse and this was heart-warming evidence of this.