Take a look through our School's journey from its new location on Friarton Road to the development of our unique and wonderful 'Urban Jungle', as well as other news of interest relating to our School.

On Tuesday 10th March 2009, pupils of Merrylee Primary School moved into their fabulous new state-of-the-art school building, which incorporates a fantastic natural play environment within the playground. The Pupil Council of our School decided to call their new playing space the 'Urban Jungle'.

Merrylee Primary School is the first school in Glasgow, and indeed the UK, to have such a natural play area, which started as an idea discussed between our Head Teacher and a member of the forestry commission. The idea went from a dream to a reality, which our Parent Council fought and worked hard for.

Our children are able to enjoy and benefit from having an area within our School's playground for natural play. This will enable them to connect with the natural environment, create their own play, increase levels of activity and develop social and interpersonal skills.

The project will be used as a pilot, forming a template for future playgrounds and natural play developments at schools in the Glasgow area and throughout Scotland.

Our School playground has been designed by landscape architect Felicity Steers, who is a parent of a pupil at Merrylee Primary, and has devoted her time and talents to the project for free. In order to finalize the design, Felicity consulted with the pupils at Merrylee Primary School and used their ideas as a basis for her innovative design.

The natural play area incorporates the following features instead of the usual level tarmac playground:

• grass covered hills
• trees in which to climb and pick fruit from
• boulders to clamber over
• wildflowers and grasses
• wooden bridge and scrambling net
• mazes to hide in

From design to the finished article, the 'Urban Jungle' has so many exciting features such as barrels planted in the ground for 'hidey holes', a viewing ampitheatre, log seats/stepping stones, trees and hills, and a fantastic wind turbine that powers approximately 12% of our Schools energy. Our Head Teacher, the Parent Council, staff, parents and pupils all worked tirelessly throughout this project. A lot of the tree planting was physically done by parent volunteers as money ran short. It was a huge effort by the whole school community who pulled together fantastically.