TUCKED away in the picturesque Monmouthshire flats, Castle Park Primary School in Caldicot, has made a real effort to inspire their pupils by embracing the outdoors, which made visiting for School of the Week an absolute pleasure.

Head teacher Kay Ford has been at the school for 10 years, arriving when St Mary’s Junior School and Sandy Lane Infants merged to create the new Castle Park school.

Castle Park Primary currently has 190 students on its books, with a total capacity on 210.

The popular school is expecting a full complement of 30 new starters to take up their places in September.

As head teacher for the last five years, and deputy head for five years before that, Mrs Kay has overseen the school’s transformation into one that prides itself on its outdoor learning, healthy attitude and technological teaching.

A prime example of this is the school’s new outdoor classroom,which cost almost £7,000 and was finally ready to use last week.

Combined with their impressive play areas and plaza space, which includes an outdoor ‘amphitheatre’, their emphasis on the outdoors is clear to see.

“We’ve invested a lot in our outdoor areas,” agreed Mrs Kay.

“The national curriculum is to bring the outdoors inside. We have two classrooms upstairs, so I wanted to create somewhere where pupils could if they were in those classes, as well as everybody else of course.

“It will be used, for instance, where children are learning outside and then we don’t have to tramp them all back to the classrooms inside.

“The plaza was built in 2011.It’s mainly for Years 5 and 6, and we encourage a lot of independent learning there. We could give them a project and tell them to research it, for example.

“Then we have an indoor theatre area where they can present their findings to the class and we can all discuss.

“Our PTA equivalent, ‘The Friends Association’, sometimes use the space to put on film nights for the children, which are also very popular.”

As well as a focus on the outdoors and independent learning, technical learning is also high on the agenda at Castle Park.

On Tuesday, a group of Year 5 pupils competed in a Formula One challenge in Swansea, presenting moving toy cars they designed and built themselves.

As well as being able to answer complicated questions on the design and construction of their cars, the pupils managed to scoop the ‘ Best Independent Thinkers’ prize.

“We like projects and competing because it engages the children, especially with complicated design initiatives like this,” explained Mrs Ford.

“We’re also involved with ‘Value Added’ who send two people to the school every now and again to teach pupils and staff IT skills.

“We’ve leased 40 iPads which go along with 16 of our own.

“The staff get trained and then pass down that information to the children. Sometimes the training goes directly to the children too.

“We focus a lot on internet safety as well. It’s a big concern of ours.We talk to the children about the dangers, and teach them to use the internet carefully and safely.

“A lot of the problems in that area come from a lack of education among parents too, and while that isn’t something we do right now, it is certainly something we will look to include in the future.”

Another big focus for the school is health.

Every morning school pupils complete the ‘outdoor mile’, whereby they do laps of the playground to get some daily exercise.

“It’s a way of getting rid of all their excess energy before they have to sit down and do some work,” explained Mrs Ford.

“We find it has a calming effect, especially on the younger children. We are a healthy school too and we tend to promote that.

“We started the outdoor mile this year, and the kids absolutely love it. Even the youngsters get involved, sometimes by having a dance class.

“Right now we don’t do it with every class, but that is something we will look to do going forward.”

An excellent example of the school’s focusses coming together was their take on the Royal Wedding.

Last Friday, May 18, the school put on their own Royal wedding.

“Everyone got involved in the project,” said Mrs Ford.

“The Year 1 pupils all had parts assigned to them in the wedding.

“Every member of the Royal family was accounted for, and an older pupil conducted the ceremony.

“The whole school was invited and went along to the event, which we held outside in our playground. We even had a red carpet for the happy couple to walk down.

“Then we had a buffet lunch. The kids and staff absolutely loved it. Everybody turned up dressed as if they were going to a wedding.”