North Rigton Primary School unveiled its new playground today (Tuesday) ahead of the new school term.
This village school is embracing a vision of "Growing, Blossoming and Flourishing," as it extends recent refurbishments from its Early Years unit into a dynamic outdoor space.
Following the completion of a redeveloped Early Years unit in November, the school has installed new playground equipment over the summer months.
The new layout features two trim trails tailored to Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils, as well as an innovative 'Discovery' area that doubles as an outdoor classroom and includes seating benches.
A spokesperson for North Rigton CE Primary said:
“The new play equipment will give children dedicated areas and activities to increase skill and fitness levels and encouragement to go on to lead healthy active lives.
“This equipment also allows us to deliver a varied and interesting curriculum, particularly in PE which has been shown to improve focus, self-discipline, and brain and cognitive development.
“The benefits of an improvement in cognitive development also boost self-esteem and wellbeing and impact positively on progress and attainment in learning.”
In celebration of the new playground, the school held a grand opening this morning.
Parents were invited to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony with refreshments, featuring bucks fizz and pastries.
Jane Goodwin, CEO of Yorkshire Causeway Schools Trust, was on hand to cut the ribbon.
She told Your Harrogate:
"Just seeing the faces of the children when they came in and saw these amazing facilities - they were immediately on there playing together and enjoying the sunshine - these are lovely facilities in a fantastic school.
"We're grateful to everyone who has made financial contributions to allow this to happen - there's been contributions from school funds, the PTA and from Yorkshire Causeway as well, which is a great way of making these things happen.
"It's quite the feat to put on a little opening like this on the first day of term when all the children are being welcomed back to school, it's brilliant."
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