Phase 2 of Outdoor Learning Centre under way

Back in summer 2021, thanks to the incredible generosity of our donors, we opened our new Outdoor Learning Centre complete with sensory garden, a fully accessible changing facility and a newly refurbished greenhouse. Alan Titchmarsh, Patron of Treloar’s, came to the campus to conduct the small scale opening ceremony and welcome donors and friends of Treloar’s who had made this new Centre possible.

A year later, we are pleased to announce that thanks to the help of funders including The Edward Gostling Foundation, Syder Foundation and Garfield Weston Foundation, we have started Phase 2 of the construction works of the Centre which include a classroom extension and a second accessible changing facility.

Having an outdoor learning centre like this offers a wide range of opportunities to nurture students’ educational and social development together with addressing their physical, emotional and intellectual needs. In the Learning Centre, our students learn about plants, small animals and the environment around them. This learning is done through practical, hands-on activities. The students have been harvesting vegetables and doing some planting. They have even hosted a plant sale earlier this year during which they sold plants which had been donated and also plants they had grown themselves.

Moreover, other benefits of having an outdoor learning space include having an area that can be used for social and leisure activities and one that enables students to participate in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy without even realising. The aim of such experiences is to encourage them to be more active and less passive in their environment.

We will keep you posted as the building work progresses and can’t wait to see the finished classroom early in 2023.