Over the last 2 years Portree Primary School has done many things to improve the school grounds for the school community and the wider community. All stake-holders have also worked to use the grounds as a vehicle for not only improving the environment but, also for developing learning and teaching.

The number of successes achieved in a very short period of time have, surpassed what normally any one school might expect to achieve over many years.

Most notable are:

• Creation of a new playground area with new equipment and an outdoor classroom. The Parent Council raised 25k in one year to enable this to happen and the work was completed in October. The equipment is used to develop health and wellbeing for all pupils and is also used by children in the evening.
• The school garden has been developed hugely with the support of parents and the school’s gardening club. SSE were also recruited to help add some terracing and some seating so the garden area can be used as a learning and teaching resource and many plants and vegetables have been grown. The garden looks great and everyone at the school is proud of it.
• The upgrading of the school’s climbing wall has just been finished and this will further support the development of health and wellbeing for all children from nursery to P7. The school saved to enable this upgrade to happen and it is now being heavily used.
• The school playground surface has now all been upgraded after years of planning and campaigning to get the authority to support this development. With some strategic planning and negotiating the school and the authority worked out a plan to enable this work to go ahead and it is now complete and the children and community now have a safe surface to play on and use which also looks good.
• This summer break a new MUGA ( Multi Purpose Games Area) is being built at the school to further promote extra- curricular activities and community and school use. This area will have a new artificial, soft surface so those using it will not get injured. The cost of this project is 60k and the school and parent body supported by the community have fund-raised to allow this to happen.

All of these projects are supported by the whole school community and the wider community as well as the school Eco Group who targeted the improvement of the school grounds, as one of their development priorities.