New Canopy for Goodrich CofE Primary School

Goodrich Church of England Primary School in Herefordshire has received a new Canopy, designed and installed by SAS Shelters. The school cooperated with the experts at SAS Shelters in order to create a shelter that would be practical and would provide a real, material benefit for the pupils.

Previously, the school already had a wooden shelter in place and this had proved very useful both for allowing pupils to seek Shade from the sun and letting them get some fresh air without getting wet when it rained. Originally, they asked SAS Shelters to quote for a new wooden shelter much the same as the old one. At first, SAS received the go-ahead to proceed in this way, but the more they looked at the project the more they thought that the school could benefit from a different approach.

Making the new structure out of wood like the old one meant that more light than necessary would be blocked out of the classrooms, partly due to the size of the supports that would be needed to safely hold the weight of a structure this size. This could make the classrooms dark, oppressive, and generally not as nice for students and teachers as they could be. On top of this, the wooden structure would require a lot of upkeep due to the need to regularly treat and paint the wood to prevent it from rotting over time.

For these reasons, SAS decided they thought they could provide the school with something much better if they took a different approach. Not wanting to leave the school with something sub-standard, they expressed their concerns and suggested an aluminium Canopy be built instead. This would require far less upkeep, and as it wouldn't need such large supporting beams and it would not block nearly so as much light out of the classroom windows. They provided the most competitive quote they could and, given the opportunity to get a much better environment for their pupils at little extra cost, the school agreed.

The school's headteacher, Karen Miles, has expressed her delight with the finished result. "The children and staff are absolutely thrilled with our new outdoor Canopy that provides a fit for purpose learning environment without any compromise," Ms Miles said.

Ms Miles also expressed her delight with the quality of service that the company provided to the school while planning and installing the shelter, saying "I had full confidence in SAS Shelters from our first meeting." In particular, the head teacher praised their efforts to ensure that all measurements were taken accurately in order to design a shelter that would fit with the existing look of the building, and to clearly explain the advantages of the aluminium shelter over the wooden one.