Canopies for Playgrounds
Playground Canopies designed with children in mind
“I am very pleased with the canopy, it has exceeded my expectations. The project has been fantastic.”
Deputy Principal, Blackpool Aspire Academy
“Communication with A&S was brilliant. I had no hesitation in calling and within half an hour the project was booked.”
Business Manager, Our Lady’s RC High School
“A&S Landscape was clearly the company to go with. They were accommodating and worked very well with us.”
Premises Manager, Haileybury College
The ‘Linear’ is our monopitch (asymmetric) straight roof variant – this is where one side is higher than the other, the standard configuration for canopies located against building elevations but also used for many applications including walkways and outdoor dining areas. Widths of 10000mm are easily achieved and wider still with additional design features.
The ‘Duo™’ is our duopitch (symmetric) curved roof variant – this is where both sides are at the same height, the most common configuration for standalone structures or structures against low roofline buildings. Ideal for covered walkways, playgrounds and outdoor dining areas.
The Sail from Maxima is an economical and eye-catching Shade Sail design to enhance any area and available in an unlimited number of shapes, configurations and colours.
Simon Balle All-through School in Hertford offers education to children from primary age right up to sixth form. In 2015, the school added a new building with classrooms, offices and an assembly hall. The new classrooms had been developed with new and exciting resources, intended to engage and stimulate students to learn. The school wanted to ensure that the outside space complemented the new school building, and this is where A&S Landscape became involved. Having designed, manufactured and installed thousands of shade systems for playgrounds and other uses, the expertise they brought was paramount to the completion of the school’s vision.
This was a large-scale project, with the school opting for not just one outdoor canopy, but four! Each one would serve its purpose in developing the outside space, but all needed to ‘fit’ with the existing architecture and surrounding environment and provide efficient shelter for the children. With the average size of classes increasing, these were to be large canopies that could be used as outdoor classrooms, an area for in-between lessons and outside dining.
For securing cycles, we installed a Cyclo City™ – our answer to the flimsy cycle stores available on the market. With a robust steel frame and 35mm thick roof, there is little doubt that this is a safe place for students and teachers to park their bikes. Great value, secure, and a clever design of simplicity – these robust stores are great for schools, colleges, and universities, where more and more students want to live a healthier lifestyle. Scooter racks were also installed inside the shelter.
While the cycle shelter and the playground canopies served more functional benefits, the entrance canopy added style. Being specialists for enhancing playgrounds in early year settings, academies and sixth forms, the shelters were designed with the children in mind. All of the canopies matched the other architectural steelwork too.
We were proud to once again to work with Balfour Betty on this project. They are a key supplier for the educational markets in both the UK and America. They work on projects that span from a single extension building, right up to entire campuses.
Each school canopy has its own purpose, and together they all create a unique focal point within the school grounds. The three linear roof canopies provide efficient shelter for the children to play outside, even during the winter months. High-quality weather protection is guaranteed by the weatherproof materials and strong structure. With Ofsted recommending that young children should be outside for at least three hours per day, Simon Balle All-through School made this possible by installing multiple canopies. The children can now enjoy the outdoors under the covered area, even in the depths of winter.
The cycle shelter serves the all-important purpose of keeping the bicycles and scooters safe for both the students and teachers. Both modern and secure, they provide full weather protection from the wind, rain, snow and hail. The fourth school canopy to be installed, the entrance canopy, has brought an essence of style and identity, a proud statement to anyone upon first entering the school.
Simon Balle all-through School is located in Hertford, Hertfordshire. We were extremely pleased to work with such a friendly and pleasant team of people. Always on hand to assist us with the process, they were a pleasure to work alongside. We were delighted to assist them with several canopies, after the success of the first two play area canopies, and see the amazing results of their ambitious project.
The straight roof variant used by A&S Landscape is monopitch (asymmetric), meaning that one side is higher than the other. The pitch varies and can be suited to your needs, however, the lowest pitch typically available is 5 degrees. This is to ensure that the end results are effective shade structures, with adequate shade to offer maximum sun protection and effective protection from the harsher weather elements.
These canopies also come with additional features including side panels, clear, opal and coloured roof, and aluminium guttering and downpipes. The final design is dependent on your needs – and A&S Landscape can assist you in making the most of the versatile nature of these outdoor shade structures.
We have been specialists in the design, creation and installation of school canopies for over 44 years. In this time, we have installed thousands of custom shade structures, some with colourful canopy roof panels, some as modular shelters that extend, and a wide variety of others. All projects are undertaken with the wellbeing of the children as the primary focus, and each is unique to the play area, outdoor area or courtyard that is available.
Being a family-led company, we have never lost touch with our core values. We are made up of a friendly team who are trusted by local authorities, educational bodies, NHS Trusts, schools, colleges and universities across the UK to deliver long-lasting canopies fit for purpose. It’s an integral part of our business to provide all of our customers with an efficient, reliable and personal service.
Whatever your requirements, we can help you choose the right shade solution for you. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on 01743 444100 or at [email protected].
More and more schools are recognising the true importance of allowing children to learn outside of the four walls of a classroom. Our range of school canopies help teachers take their classes outside to provide a memorable and engaging lesson. This has been found to help improve children’s understanding of the world around of them.
See how we can use outdoor learning to empower the next generation
Transcription
Jo Clark (On the Hill Director and Facilitator):
One of the reasons I feel really passionate about this work is that, I was brought up on a farm not many miles away. And incidentally a farm where my parents struggled to make a living off 60 acres of land. And nowadays could certainly not make a living off 40 acres of land that we have here. I’m absolutely determined to use this land for social, educational and therapeutic purposes.
But what has inspired me over the years working with land-based education, and I was a teacher doing that work for 10 years, I’ve been involved in an organisation developing land-based initiatives for children, young people and adults for 10 years.
What I really, really want to question is just how we are growing our next generation. Are we growing our next generation into conformist, compliance people who will serve the present economic system? Or are we empowering our next generation to feel that they can be part of the change, the change that clearly is needed in our society?
What we have found and what we really are developing is ways that we can build resilience, build self-confidence, build a sense in the young people that they can be part of building their future. And encouraging them to make sense of their world. And involving them in the gardens and the natural world, management of the woodlands and hedgerows, and engagement with the food that they eat. They are making more sense because actually nature does make sense.
What happens in our natural world is much less abstract than what happens in our human created world. We’re helping them to make sense, but we’re also involving them.
In our programs, whether we’re doing our outreach in schools, helping schools develop their school gardens, or building pizza ovens, or any other outdoor learning facilities. Whether we’re doing that in schools or whether we’re building a new barn, or a new set of compost toilets, or a new pizza oven, or working in the garden here or managing the woodland and hedgerows, looking after the animals.
We’re actually giving children a sense that they can be part of the building of that future. We’re actually strengthening what I called, something that I feel that we’re all born with is, imagine it as the in-service muscle.
Imagine a muscle that we’re all born with because we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be part of community. We want to be making a contribution to community, but our culture is not really helping this muscle develop. And consequently, the muscle becomes rather atrophied and it’s not strengthened.
And what I’m talking about is offering children and young people the opportunity to build and strengthen this in-service muscle. So as they grow through childhood, and through their teens and into adulthood, that they actually feel that they can rather than having to jump through hundreds of hoops that they’ve had to jump through in order to make a contribution, they’ve been empowered by being allowed to make a contribution. So by the time they get to adulthood, they feel that they’re actually can build their future.
Here we are with students from Exeter University studying their PGCE. And the question that we’ve put to them, and I think the question that they’re asking is, how can they be of best service to the growing and the educating of the next generation?
How can they bring themselves more fully?
How can they explore every single aspect of learning and whatever constraint to put upon them, whatever limitation that they have to work within?
How can they bring themselves fully so that they can actually offer an education that is not only focused on information intellectually-based learning, that is more focused around growing the whole human being?
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