Supermarket gives helping hand to Coldingham kids

The children at Coldingham Primary School were celebrating this week, after hearing that they are all set to get their new outdoor classroom, thanks to securing at least £8,000 through the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.

However, they are now asking for help from shoppers, who are being asked to vote in the Berwick Tesco store, as the school could be awarded up to £12,000.

This additional funding would allow the school to invest in even more resources to support childrens’ play and learning.

This could include things like outdoor cooking facilities, magnifying posts to help with the studying of nature, a wormery, buddy bench and a water feature.

Three projects have been chosen to be represented in the Berwick store, with the one with most votes by Sunday, March 6 taking the largest grant.

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its Bags of Help initiative. The scheme will see three community groups awarded grants of £12,000, £10,000 and £8,000 – all raised from the 5p bag charge.

Head teacher James Bewsey said this week: “We were absolutely delighted to hear that Tesco has chosen to support our project.

“The outdoors offers enormous potential for learning and having an outdoor classroom will give us even greater opportunities to plan lively and motivating experiences for children. The additional shelter which the structure provides will mean our outdoors can be used for learning on days when it might not have been in the past.”

The outdoor space will also be a useful community resource, with Guides, Brownies and Rainbows already planning to hold meetings there and make use of the other facilities to teach children about nature.

This will benefit children from surrounding areas, including kids from Eyemouth, Cockburnspath, Ayton and Reston.

Mr Bewsey went on: “Excitement is running high as the children await the outcome of voting.

“There have been lots of developments in the playground over the past few years and the children have driven all of this, supported by school, community groups and the Parents and Friends Association.

“We are now asking everyone shopping in Tesco this week to please consider giving us their vote to help bring the children’s plans to fruition.”