National award for Hills learning spaces
Schools
The new outdoor learning areas at St Francis de Sales College have received national recognition in the Learning Environments Australasia Awards announced this month.
The college was named winner of the Landscaping/Outdoor Learning Area category at the awards which recognise excellence in educational facility design.
Completed last year, the project at the Mount Barker school provided four new learning communities for Reception to Year 6 and the Alive Catholic Early Learning Centre. The buildings are surrounded by nature play and nature-based learning spaces that utilise the college’s outstanding location in the beautiful Adelaide Hills environment.
Judges for the awards said the ‘landscape softens the school, makes it less institutional and provides a good range of outdoor learning opportunities’.
‘Within a school this creates a sense of community among students being able to work in an environment they feel comfortable,’ they said.
‘The natural water course that flows throughout the area is designed to be an interconnecting feature of the outdoor spaces that provides opportunities for nature play and learning that is connecting flowing, engaging and ever changing.’
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