Portland Primary School – Reading Spaces and Green Places

PLACED worked with Portland Primary School in Birkenhead and our friends at Heal Earth CIC to encourage reading and create greener spaces for learning and play.

In 2018, we helped teachers at Portland Primary School to deliver the curriculum creatively. Our workshops supported literacy, geography, art, design technology, history and STEM subjects children for in Years 4 and 5.

We delivered three tailor-made workshops for the school.

Our workshops are always hands-on, fun and engaging. We explored how we could bring unused and unloved spaces back to life, encourage children to read more, and attract local wildlife. We tackled real world challenges to design pop-up reading spaces and green places using recycled materials.

Children got a taste of what it’s like to work as an architect, designer, planner or engineer. Pupils visited and analysed sites, presented ideas, developed designs and used simple materials to build models.

With the support of our friends at Heal Earth CIC, the children’s models were developed into real world structures for their school. This includes a reading pod for the playground, a pop-up pod for a piece of unused land outside the school, and a pod that encourages local wildlife and planting.

Children developed problem solving, communication and teamworking skills. They thought creatively about spaces and places – and how we can make them better. Pupils learned about careers they may never have heard of before.