EGLOSKERRY Primary School is bidding to bag a massive cash boost from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 — all raised from the 5p bag levy — being awarded to local community projects.

Three groups in every Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

Egloskerry Primary School’s project ‘Play Together, Learn Together, Grow Together’ is one of the groups on the shortlist with the school saying: “Building on from the school’s successful topic and immersive learning approach to education, learning and discovery we require funding to link this to renewing our playground space.”

Headteacher, Mrs Emma Kerr, said: “Our pupil-led school council, the staff and governors have already met to discuss how our playground provision should be designed to deliver the brief and ethos of our school approach to learning and discovery.

“Building on from the school’s successful topic and immersive learning approach to education, learning and discovery we want to link this to our playground space. Research, as well as our own practice, proves that children learn best when engaged in play; we believe that this should include learning about their topic at playtimes. With this in mind we have used the children’s ideas to plan for a fully interactive playground space that would support classroom learning and discovery.

“The outcome would be increased opportunities for pupils to apply their learning through ‘flow’ experiences at playtimes e.g. literacy links/activities, numeracy opportunities and science investigations; the options are endless and the draft playground plan would support this alongside staff scaffolds and guidance.

“A huge benefit of being a small school is that all of our pupils play together. The value of this is evident in our low incidences of bullying, arguments etc. With a revised and well-suited playground, we believe that the playground space and time used in it would be an effective extension of classroom learning.

“In addition to this, we would be able to better use this space for community events and performances (using the new stage) to further promote the arts, play-centered learning and immersing children in meaningful experiences outdoors. We have already seen impact of this from our forest school work over the last few years with many families setting up their own areas in gardens/green spaces at home and we anticipate the same will happen with modelling how outside mud kitchens, water activities and sand play can impact children’s development.”

Voting is open in stores throughout May and June. Customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the checkout in store each time they shop.

Tesco’s Bags of Help project has already delivered over £28.5-million to more than 4,000 projects up and down the UK. Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups everytime they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions will be awarded funding.

Head of community at Tesco, Lindsey Crompton, said: “We are absolutely delighted to open the voting for May and June. There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see them come to life in hundreds of communities.”

Groundwork’s national chief executive, Graham Duxbury, said: “We’ve been thrilled to see the diversity of projects that have applied for funding, ranging from outdoor classrooms, sports facilities, community gardens, play areas and everything in between.

“We’re looking forward to learning the results of the customer vote and then supporting each group to bring their project to life.”

Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. Anyone can nominate a project and organisations can apply online. To find out more, visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp