Outdoor learning

At Lansbury Lawrence, we are incredibly lucky to have extensive outdoor grounds. The main school building was designed with large accessible spaces on either side. We take huge pride in these areas, and over the years have landscaped them to maximise areas for play while also having natural areas to support habitats and maintain mature growth. Some of our trees were planted by royalty! We have a wide range of fruit trees, and our raspberry bushes are popular with the children when the fruit is ripe. Our ‘secret garden’ is home to chickens, and a small pond area too.

 In 2018, we were awarded the Tower Hamlets in Bloom ‘Best Newcomer’ award, in recognition of our grounds. The following year, 2019, we went on to win the ‘Best Educational Establishment’ award.

Edible Playground

In 2018, the mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, officially opened our Edible Playground in one of our playgrounds. The Edible Playgound was designed and built by the charity ‘Trees for Cities’. We have a large area of raised beds, where we grow and harvest fruit and vegetables. Every child within the school has a timetabled half term to work with Joe, our school gardener, to learn about growing food through the seasons. We run family gardening sessions during school holidays, to continue the planting and harvesting cycle all year round. Have a look at the films we made with Trees for Cities below, for some planting top tips.

Eco Committee

Our Eco Committee is made up of children from across the school, who care about our environment. In 2019, they confidently spoke about how we have improved our energy usage, waste and biodiversity at Lansbury Lawrence, to an assessor as part of our Eco Schools progress. As a result of this, we were the first school in Tower Hamlets to receive the Eco Schools Green Flag Award. We are so incredibly proud of everyone at Lansbury Lawrence for all of their work making our environment a better place.

Forest School

We believe Forest School supports children to become healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners, while nurturing understanding and respect for our environment. Every child in the school has timetabled Forest School sessions. These sessions are currently led by Ms Boglietti, a trained Forest School practitioner. As part of our continued professional development programme for teachers, we have also trained Ms King (Early Years lead teacher) as a Forest School practitioner, as part of our on-going commitment to outdoor teaching and learning.