The Schoolyard Blitz at Glenroi Public

Students at Glenroi Heights Public School have an exciting new nature play area, thanks to a Schoolyard Blitz hosted by Newcrest’s Cadia Valley Operations (Cadia).

The Schoolyard Blitz was a one-day event that took place earlier this week, where 15 volunteers from Cadia worked with the students and teachers to transform an area of the school playground.

The school recently installed new, natural-based playground equipment, so the Schoolyard Blitz focused on bringing the playground to life, by placing the required soft-fall material for the equipment, developing a path to run through the area and establishing a native garden including natural materials, such as boulders and a tree trunk.

Glenroi Heights Principal, Elizabeth Beasley explained, “Our playground is large and does not have many play areas. The purpose of the nature play area is to provide students with different areas and activities to engage them and allow them to build positive social skills and relationships.”

“We are very excited and cannot thank Cadia enough, our kids are just amazed, they are loving it. It’s really nice we are seeing kids thriving in this activity and getting hands on. We’ve had the whole school doing their bit in helping out and we even had some pre-schoolers in too which was fantastic.”

This is the first stage of the envisioned playground, Elizabeth mentioning they hope to add a multipurpose court, a new kitchen area, a bike track and a loose parts play area.

The school applied for a Cadia Community Partnership grant towards the nature play area earlier in the year.

Cadia General Manager, Peter Sharpe, said that while the school was successful in gaining $1,000 towards the project, Cadia’s Community Partnership Committee felt that there was a greater opportunity for Cadia to get directly involved in delivering the project.

“By offering manual labour, materials from our mine site and additional funding for plants and materials, the Schoolyard Blitz has allowed the project to be completed sooner than anticipated and has also given the students ownership of the project by allowing them to be involved in its development,” Peter said.

“The Schoolyard Blitz is also an initiative of our Workforce Engagement program, which aims to provide positive opportunities for the Cadia workforce to give back to the community through getting involved in environmental and community programs.”

Materials were sourced from the Australian Native Landscapes Orange branch, who kindly provided discounted materials, as well as Cadia and local nurseries.