A new initiative being rolled out by Englefeld School will receive a boost thanks to a generous donation. 

Midway Coop Ltd. presented a $2,500 cheque to Englefeld School on November 14th to go towards the kickstart of the Loose Parts Playground Fundraiser Initiative.

Englefeld Staff, along with the SCC and the student body, have a goal of building a STEAM playground space on the school grounds, to promote critical and creative thinking. STEAM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts, and much more.  

"We want to incorporate as many things as possible. It's basically a loose parts playground that promotes life skills, communication, science, creativity, and technological thinking. We bring real-life situations, on a smaller scale, into the playground and we let students use their imaginative resources to play," said Principal of Englefeld School, Corrine Harcourt.

A loose parts playground could feature a number of different aspects. One such aspect could include a building area, where students would utilize their hands-on skills, along with creative thinking and engineering to create different objects.

"One idea was to have hewn logs to create log cabins on a small scale. So the logs would be notched out and the students would be able to create whatever met the needs for their style of play that day. Another would include a type of sieve and different types of rocks and materials. The students can funnel the materials through the sieves and we would have Tonka Toys to create a construction type area where they could work with different rocks and materials."

The donation from Midway Coop will kickstart the planning process. Englefeld School will now use the money to build a storage shed for all the potential interchanging aspects of the playground.

"The shed is needed so we can rotate different activities for the kids throughout the season, so thats where we're starting at. Our SCC and SRC are currently fundraising for this initiative. This is just a great start for us."