Developing an understanding and appreciation for natural systems in our children, helps them understand the world and promotes sustainable living. Each part of the school grounds functions to create a beautiful landscape that demonstrates a function of the building and the values of the school.

Community is at the heart of the design, with space for parents and carers created to meet their children and enjoy the school productions and events. With the building opening out over the habitat garden and pond to create terrace for events.

The water cycle has been woven though the school, expressed in rills through the playground and sustaining the dipping pond. The project celebrates water and shows how storm events are contained within a floodable landscape, bringing the wider influence of Beddington Wetlands close to the classroom.

Play promotes the natural world with large carved play features and storying telling corner and throne created from site won timber. These features weave through the gardens which provide growing spaces and orchard planting. Formal play is provided on a grass sports pitch created from site soils carefully managed to reduce the need for imported material.

Extending across the entire roof surface is a Biosolar Photovoltaic array which supports a rich grassland habitat beneath ensure the biodiversity of the site is optimised whilst helping to keep the power produced by the PV cells to the maximum by cooling urban heat gain. A symbiotic relationship in every sense.