During the summer, the new outdoor play structure, funded by the Parents' Association began to take shape.

The idea came from the sense that, while the younger children had structures to play on, there wasn't a structure specifically for the older pupils in our school.

There was consultation with the older pupils, staff and Parents' Association members in advance of the plan for the play structure, drawn up by Silvabuild, a company in Cork. Pupils wanted a structure that could accommodate lost of children at the same time, had a platform at height and could be used as a base or den for games, such as tip the can. The children also wanted to retain the tunnel and hill that was in the area already. The area for the structure is quite small which created some limitations.

1. The first job was to strip the sod off the top of the ground, move the tunnel and relocate it beside where the new structure was going in. 2. The sods were then relaid on top of the soil making up the new hill above the tunnel.

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3. Next, all of the soil had to be removed to a depth of 20 cm and two trenches were dug that were filled with concrete foundations to keep the structure stable.

4. Once the foundations were in place, the space between the two foundations was dug out and filled with stone, as it was going to be underneath something very heavy.

5. The stone was needed because the structure being placed between the foundations was a cedar tree, sourced in Co. Cork. One side of the tree trunk was sawn flat to be used as a way to climb up on the platform of the play structure.

6. Finally, the play structure arrived. First, the slide arrived from Denmark.

7. Once in position approximately, the structure began to be assembled.

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You can see a short video of the complete structure in this short YouTube video above