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Virtual events exploded onto the scene in 2020. What was largely a a niche format, almost overnight, became an essential platform as event professionals worldwide pivoted to virtual events in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic. While events in the UK are set to make a return on 17th May, virtual events are not going anywhere soon, with many speculating that they are here to stay. As Millennium Point Events recently unveiled our own virtual events packages, this blog will give you a bit more insight into why going virtual could be the perfect solution for your event.

WHAT’S A VIRTUAL EVENT?

A virtual event occurs completely online, with attendees interacting in a virtual environment over the internet rather than meeting in a physical space. A virtual event could be anything from a business meeting to an awards ceremony, conference or showcase. They occur on a variety of platforms, from being broadcast on YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook Live to dedicated software platforms.

BENEFITS OF CHOOSING A VIRTUAL EVENT

It’s the safest option against Covid-19

This one is obvious but an incredibly important benefit. Hosting a virtual event means no physical attendance, therefore no concerns over managing large groups of people. It also eliminates concerns for delegates and attendees over their health and wellbeing. Similarly, hosting a virtual event means that it wont be affected by lockdowns or changing restrictions so therefore much less likely to be cancelled or postponed.

Even now with restrictions easing, we can’t predict what is round the corner – hosting a virtual event eliminates any uncertainties around the ebbs and flows of covid restrictions which is why many big brands, such as E3, are opting to remain virtual for the time being.

Linking entities. Network, networking, social media, internet communication abstract. A small network connected to a larger network. in paper linked together by cotton with a black tint

Increases your audience through accessibility

Despite what you may think, virtual events are actually likely to register higher participation figures than their in-person counterparts. The reason for this is simply because it’s more accessible. With an online event there are no travel times, attendees can drop in and out as they please, they don’t have to socialise and are not committed to staying for the full event. It’s also more accessible and inclusive, allowing people with personal or logistical challenges to be included. Lastly, a virtual event eliminates geographical barriers which means people around the world can now access your event increasing the reach significantly. In short, hosting a virtual event is a lot more flexible, convenient and accessible for attendees compared to a physical event, which widens appeal and opens up a larger audience.

Male hand putting money coin stack growing business, saving money concept.

Reduced expenses

Virtual events are generally more cost efficient than physical events. In most cases, you have no operational costs or overheads such as venue hire, staff and catering. In other cases, such as a virtual award ceremony, you might need a studio space prior to film some content but while there will be some overheads these will be considerably less. Similarly, there will be no travel costs for your attendees and participants, which in turn lead to a more appealing event.

Behaviour Analytics

Being 100% online gives you the opportunity to track, capture and make the most of attendee data in ways that would be more difficult to achieve in a physical event. Virtual platforms offer deep data analytics such as attendees, views, reactions, engagement, drop offs during the event – all of this type of data allows you to determine your users interest and behaviour during your events and after. These analytics can also be used as a hook for prospective attendees, sponsors and partners who can use the data to find who requires follow-up after the event based on their interactions.

More value for exhibitors and sponsors

In 2020, reports found that exhibitors and sponsors felt they gained more value out of virtual events. As mentioned above, virtual events tend to have more attendees and deeper analytics. Exhibitors/Sponsors can connect with participants virtually at any time, showcase & promote their services through virtual social communities, and no longer worry about empty event booths at the physical venue. Less of travels, more of valuable, effective interactions.

Feed your pipeline

All of the content can be recorded – from the action on screen to the live chat. Compared to a physical event this gives you a lot more opportunity to feed your marketing pipeline after the event. You can break the recording into bitesize segments for social media, share the full event and capture new audience members and you can also use it as an example when pitching to new sponsors to give them an idea of what to expect.

HOW TO HOST YOUR VIRTUAL EVENT

We hope this has given you a lot to think about when planning your next event. Whether you’ve planned a virtual event before or not, it’s easy to get started.

Here at Millennium Point, we have both virtual and hybrid event packages available that are both affordable and top quality. Start exploring how adding a virtual element to your event can benefit you today by getting in touch with our multi-award winning events team.

WATCH A HYBRID EVENT IN ACTION

Get your free ticket to our own hybrid conference Talking Point: The Future of Events from 2pm – 4pm on Wednesday 26th May. This two-hour event consists of two panels that will examine what the next 12-18 months has in store for the events industry. You can join online or in-person to see how a hybrid event at Millennium Point works as well as join in a vital conversation around kickstarting the events and hospitality industry across the UK.

To reserve your ticket, or for further information, visit the dedicated page here.

Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.

Every year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust Small Grants programme gives out grants of up to £20,000 to support science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education projects in the West Midlands. Applications are now open for 2021.

Here is one of the many projects that the programme has funded in 2020.

Who’s running the project?
South Bromsgrove High School is a co-educational, secondary school and sixth form with academy status, located in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.

What’s it all about?
The initiative funded by the grant forms part of a much wider international project, based in The Netherlands, called HiSPARC.

It is a network of cosmic ray detectors situated in schools and universities that feed their data into a public database, allowing students to analyse it and carry out original research. They can start with a simple task, which might be looking at the variation between night and day or winter and summer, then progress to more complex investigations including identifying sources of the cosmic rays somewhere out there in space.

Atmospheric conditions are a factor in the number of cosmic rays hitting the detectors, so the automatic weather station which the grant will fund will extend the scope of the school’s investigations as well as those of other students in Britain and The Netherlands that use HiSPARC. In addition, each project completed can be submitted for a CREST Award at Bronze, Silver or Gold, depending on the level of challenge as certification for their contribution to scientific research.

The remainder of the grant will ensure that more staff at South Bromsgrove High School can also be trained to lead groups of students to help build capacity and expertise on this project.

Who will benefit?
At least a dozen students will be involved from Years 10 and 11. The aim is to keep the programme rolling so that over time more students will have the chance to learn about cosmic rays, the scientific process and handling data.

What they said:
Steve Clark, Career Lead and Assistant Head of Science, said: “This is a project that has really grown at South Bromsgrove High School. It started off as one student joining as part of a summer school run by the University of Birmingham and as it was relatively easy to join and accessible from any computer with internet access, we decided that it was worth pursuing. We first installed our own detector and now with the support from Millennium Point Charitable Trust the project will evolve into something even bigger and for generations to come.

“STEM subjects are a key component of the curriculum here. Our science department is very successful, having four students leave in 2020 to take up science subjects at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Space topics always stimulate interest and don’t have an inherent gender bias either, so we hope to encourage as many students to take part and look forward to unveiling our new weather station enhancing the project even further.”

When’s it all happening?
During 2021 but then ongoing.

About educational grant funding from Millennium Point
Educators, Charities and Not-for-Profits within the West Midlands Combined Authority can apply for up to £20,000 from Millennium Point to fund their STEM activity. For more information on how to access this funding please visit www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/grants

Hybrid events are becoming an increasingly attractive spin on traditional events. Outside of the benefits during the current pandemic, there is also a lot to be said about how they can enhance your event and return on investment. As we launch our own hybrid event packages, this blog will give you a bit more insight into why you should consider making your next event a hybrid event.

What’s a Hybrid Event?

Hybrid events allow people to attend an event in person AND online. This allows for greater audience numbers as additional attendees can join virtually and enjoy the same content as the physical attendees. Hybrid events allow the same interaction within an event such as Q&A, whether your watching in person or virtually.

Benefits of choosing a hybrid event

It Makes Your Event More Resilient to Covid-19

Getting the obvious point out of the way, a hybrid event helps you to navigate the restrictions of the pandemic significantly. It means you can have reduced physical capacity compliant with social distancing and safety measures without losing out on your potential audience – because you can make up for it with online attendance.

It also means you’re not losing attendees who don’t feel comfortable turning up to a physical event because they can still join online from the safety of their own home.

Lastly, your event is more resilient to cancellation because you would already have a virtual element. This means that you can quickly and easily move the physical elements online with minimal impact on the overall scope of your event.

Increased Reach & Attendance

Hybrid events allow you to increase your reach and gain more attendees in several ways. Firstly, it allows people who otherwise could not travel to your event to attend. It makes it more accessible to people with disabilities who may have had challenges attending in person. It also allows people to duck in and out at their convenience, which makes it more appealing to attend rather than just outright needing to commit for the whole event.

Additionally, there will always be people who want to come but can’t for one reason or another. This negates that problem by not only letting them attend live online but catch up with it after the fact. This latter point also means you can reach new audiences even after your event has passed by posting it online, it also gives audiences a flavour of what kind of events you run when promoting your next one.

With a hybrid event, you lower the barrier to entry for both demographics – those who want to attend but can’t, those who are unsure if it’s worth their time, and those who initially miss the event.

Higher Engagement With Your Audiences

Adding a virtual element to your live event opens up more engagement opportunities than would be possible at a strictly physical event. Virtual audiences can actively participate on their devices, from liking and sharing the stream to participating in Q&As, activities or conducting live polls.

Improved Return on Investment

Hybrid events offer an increased return on investment due to the increased reach and scalability of your event. With an online element, you’re likely getting more attendance and more views of your content. An enormous benefit comes from the data and the insights it shows.

Beyond doing simply a headcount, you know the participation numbers, plus how they engaged and when they dropped out of the session. You also gain information on your attendees’ interests through matchmaking data and session participation, which can help you improve your optimise the content of future events.

Lastly, this makes sponsorship a lot more attractive because you have tangible metrics for your sponsors and a wider platform for them to promote their business via online engagement.

How to host your hybrid event

We hope this has given you a lot to think about when planning your next event. Whether you’ve planned a hybrid event before or not, it’s easy to get started.

Here at Millennium Point, we have a hybrid event package that is both affordable and top quality. Start exploring how choosing a hybrid event can benefit you today by getting in touch with our multi-award winning events team.

Watch a Hybrid Event in Action

To reserve your ticket, or for further information, visit the dedicated page here.

We are proud to announce our first hybrid conference – Talking Point: The Future of Events. This two-hour hybrid conference covers the roadmap to recovery for the events industry and coincides with the relaunch of our multi-award winning events businesses.

Fourteen months ago the events and hospitality industry in the UK was forced to close due to Covid-19. Now with the industry reopening, venues, booking agents and customers have a lot to consider on the road to recovery.

Talking Point: The Future of Events runs from 2pm – 4pm on Wednesday 26th May. It consists of two panels that will examine what the next 12-18 months has in store for the events industry. Topics covered will include the latest trends, the rise of hybrid and virtual conference solutions, the importance of sustainability, corporate social responsibility and what the roadmap to recovery will be for events and hospitality.

This will be an opportunity for agents, event bookers and professionals to see how a hybrid event at Millennium Point works as well join in a vital conversation around kickstarting the events and hospitality industry across the UK.

The panels comprise local leaders across key industries including Chris Peacock, Co-Founder of Conference; Michael Anderson, Director of Projects at West Midlands Metro and Andrew Perolls, CEO of Greengage Solutions – with more to be announced over the coming weeks.

Rebecca Delmore, Commercial Director and Victoria Webb, Sales Manager both at Millennium Point, will also join the panels to give insight into the current position of being an events and conference venue.

This event will be hosted live from our newly refurbished 354 seat Auditorium and is available to attend online and in limited numbers in person at Millennium Point. This will be the first glimpse at our Auditorium since it’s refurbishment in spring this year with brand new features which include a larger stage and inmproved lighting and AV technology.

This event is free to attend both online and in person. The event will be broadcast live across our digital channels and will be available for replay on our Youtube following it’s conclusion.

To reserve your ticket, or for further information, visit the dedicated page here.

We’re delighted to announce the panel of judges for this year’s Millennium Point Scholarship competition. The panel consists of professionals influential in their respective fields from a broad range of STEM industries.

The distinguished judging panel, which will be headed by Millennium Point CEO Abbie Vlahakis, also features:

Professor Hanifa Shah – Executive Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, Birmingham City University
Kari Lawler – Founder at Youth4Code and Youth4AI
Mike Ridler – Head of Business Development and Education at Learn by Design
Sam Gibbs – CEO at IT specialists 81G

The calibre of finalists for this year’s scholarship is impressive as ever, so it’s only right that the quality of our judging panel is equal to it. This is a phenomenal opportunity for all five students – not just the winner of the life-changing scholarship, but the advice and support they all receive from the Trust, both before and after the final.

What’s the Millennium Point Scholarship?

Now in its seventh year, the Millennium Point Trust Scholarship has already funded six inspiring young people from the region through their degrees at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment. Previous winners of the scholarship include Sagal Qodah in 2017, who has since gone on to graduate with a First Class Honours degree in Civil Engineering and has now landed a dream graduate role at Jacobs.

How will a winner be chosen?

The panel will assess our five Scholarship finalists for 2021, who will be announced later this month. The assessment includes a formal presentation and an informal interview about the finalist and their motivation to win the scholarship. While the assessment will take place behind closed doors as a precaution against covid-19, the results will be announced in a closed ceremony which will be broadcast from our multi-award-winning venue on Friday 26th May.

The Livestream will be announced in the coming weeks and will be available to view across our digital channels. For more information on the Scholarship competition, visit www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/scholarship

Image (L – R): Professor Hanifa Shah, Executive Dean of the BCUCEBE, Abigail Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point, Shennice Talburt, Scholarship Winner 2020, Prof. Nick Morton, Head of the School of Engineering and the Built Environment at the Scholarship Live Final in 2020.

Maximise the reach and impact of your next event with a hybrid or virtual package, now available from our multi-award-winning venue.

With four available to choose from, our hybrid and virtual event packages give you and your event greater flexibility and impact – making them an ideal choice for your big come back once events are allowed from 17th May.

Packages available are:

Package 1: HD Video Conferencing from £250
Package 2: Studio Package (On Demand Recording) from £1200
Package 3: Studio Package (Live Stream) from £1500
Package 4: Auditorium Hybrid Conference (Live Stream) from £1750

Further details and demonstrations can be found on our dedicated page.

Virtual Event at Millennium Point. Jade & JP Acoustic Duo.

What’s a virtual event?

Virtual events are 100% online with no physical presence at the event. For example, this could be an online conference, presentation or webinar, where attendees watch via an online platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Setting up for a Hybrid Event in the Auditorium at Millennium Point

What’s a hybrid event?

Hybrid events are slightly different to Virtual events, they combine physical attendance with an online presence. This allows for greater audience numbers as additional attendees can join virtually and enjoy the same content as the physical attendees. Hybrid events allow the same interaction within an event such as Q&A, whether your watching in person or virtually.

Virtual Event. The Wolfpack Howlers Charity stream live from Millennium Point’s Studio.

Why choose one of these packages?

Virtual and Hybrid conference solutions are incredibly attractive in 2021. Pandemic aside, they offer greater flexibility to your event by minimising issues such as travel and accessibility due to being available remotely. They’re also less affected by local or global events, so less risk of postponing or cancelling your event.

You will reach a wider online audience. This not only gives your event more gravitas but gives you access to more data and insights, which helps grow your business and keep stakeholders happy. Lastly, this makes sponsorship more lucrative and therefore your event more attractive to sponsors or investors.

Explore our hybrid and virtual conference solutions today and see how we can help you make a big come back to events.

Here is one of the many projects that the programme has funded in 2020.

Who’s running the project?
The project is run by Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School who is the third oldest school in the West Midlands and one of the leading state schools in the country, offering education to boys in year 7-11, with a co-educational sixth form. The school aims to become an educational hub offering resources to other schools and communities within the area.

What’s it all about?
The school’s new timekeeping project is aimed at Key Stage Three pupils, specifically those in year 8, with a focus on students designing and making their own working clocks, using the new laser cutter the grant will help buy.

STEM plays a massive part in the school’s culture, including a specialist STEM block that opened in 2017 and science A-Levels the most popular in terms of uptake. This latest project’s aim is to raise skill levels and give students access to areas of DT (Design Technology) they would not normally cover in lesson time. Interest and uptake in the project is expected to be high, so the school has scheduled to run the project twice during the academic year.

The funding will also allow the school to support outreach work with local primaries, which will develop Key Stage Two pupils and give them access to cutting edge technology, inspiring them to consider a future in STEM.

Who will benefit?
As many Year 8 students as possible, depending on the uptake and practicalities of the sessions and bubble timetables. The sessions will be with groups of a maximum of 20 students.

What they said:
Mrs Skye Bowen, Head of Design Technology, commented: “This is an interesting application of the capacity of the laser cutter; it gives the students a physical and working product at the end, and exposes them to CAD and CAM processes. It’s also outside of the realms of projects they might undertake within the confines of the curriculum.

“We have focused on Key Stage Three because due to curriculum restrictions our pupils do not have as much exposure to the practical elements of Design Technology as we would like. Ultimately, it’s our aim to encourage greater numbers of pupils opting for Design Technology as a GCSE subject; we then aim to put on A-level courses in the near future, to support the design and engineering careers.”

Recently we talked about how environmental sustainability has been gaining significant traction in-light of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, with a tentative date for conferencing and events to make a return, many event bookers are starting to consider ways in which they can ensure their events are more considerate of the environment. We’ve checked in with our multi-award winning events team as they’re gearing up to re-open to bring you three ways to make your event more environmentally friendly.

Make it a hybrid event

A hybrid event combines a physical event with an online presence through live streaming and virtual conferencing technology. This allows for an online audience as well as a physical one, eliminating capacity issues and increases the reach and engagement of your event. Other benefits to a hybrid event include being more accessible to vulnerable people, or those restricted by location or transport; greater flexibility and security from cancellation caused by local disruption; and valuable data and metrics that give a deeper insight into your event.

Hybrid events go a long way to reducing an events carbon footprint. With people accessing online, it reduces carbon emissions that would have been generated from travel; it also reduces the energy and water consumption required and cuts down on wasted food and products venues will have leftover from the event. Outside of the event itself, you would also be reducing the carbon footprint of attendees who may have had to travel and stay in a hotel by giving them the option to attend virtually.

Sustainable food and drink

Adopt sustainable food and beverage practices when providing for your attendees. Examples of this can be vegetarian and vegan meal options and locally and ethically sourced produce that support the local economy, and managing food waste rather than simply binning it. These practices not only help the environment but also provide more choice and for your guests, allowing them more opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint and feel good about themselves and by extension creating a more positive event experience. Having these practices may also increase engagement from your audience, reducing any concerns they have over their carbon footprint and making your event more attractive to attend.

Most venues, like Millennium Point, should have their own supply chains for sustainable food and drink should you wish to go through them rather than source your own.

Use recyclable and environmentally sustainable materials

Complimentary to your sustainable food and beverages, you can also look at switching to more recyclable and environmentally friendly materials for use at your events. This can be anything from using paper or canvas bags to hand out to attendees to using paper plates, paper straws and wooden cutlery and serving drinks in biodegradable cups. Similarly, ensure that these items are recycled properly after the event rather than binned through dedicated recycle bins or recycle “stations” set up throughout the event.

Switching to recyclable and environmentally sustainable materials save on waste products, energy and water consumption (from cleaning). Like we mentioned above, they are also a great way of visually demonstrating your commitment to the environment to your attendees. Their event experience may also be improved knowing that both you and they are taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint.

Start planning your next environmentally sustainable event at Millennium Point

Our multi-award winning venue is located in the eastside of Birmingham city centre. We have seventeen versatile indoor and outdoor conference and event spaces from intimate meeting rooms to a large 354-seat auditorium with a giant screen. We offer hybrid and virtual conference solutions with seamless HD live streaming and advanced audio and visual technology. We are proud to be an ECOsmart venue for the measures we are taking to be environmentally sustainable. Speak to one of our highly trained and friendly events team, with over 40 years of combined experience, about planing your next environmentally sustainable event or conference at Millennium Point.

We are proud to be working with Wowdot CIC to support the Connect_In campaign, which provides laptops to children without access to computers or the internet.

Our landmark public building in the eastside of Birmingham city centre is a drop off point in which members of the public can donate any unused laptops they have. These laptops will then be refurbished and distributed to vulnerable children within the local area. Millennium Point has further supported the initiative by donating a number of laptops to the cause, alongside encouraging other businesses and the public to support the campaign.

The acceleration of digital demand as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic has underlined the overwhelming digital poverty that hits schools and children within the West Midlands. Launched by The Child Poverty Action Forum and supported by Wowdot CIC, the Connect_In campaign aims to ensure the most disadvantaged families are receiving the help that they need with homeschooling during the pandemic, in the form of laptops and a stable internet connection. Millennium Point joins a host of businesses that have partnered with Wowdot CIC to support this campaign.

Abbie Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point, commented: “Education and STEM are in the trust’s DNA, so it was clear to us that we had to get involved with the Connect_In campaign.

“It’s essential that every child has access to education and digital provision during the pandemic, to give everyone the same life chances and to prevent the “huge gap” between the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and their peers. We’ll not only be serving as a hub for drop-off and collection of laptops, but we’re committed to donating thousands of laptops to disadvantaged local school children too.”

If you or your business has an old laptop you are not using then please bring it to the reception on the ground floor of our landmark public building between 9 am and 5 pm on weekdays.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a laptop but would still like to support then it costs just £300 to provide a family with 12 months of internet connection and a reconditioned PC or laptop. You can donate funds directly to Wowdot’s dedicated account which can be found on their website alongside any other questions you may have.

Go to their website.

Our support forms part of our ongoing mission as a STEM charitable trust to enhance the growth of the region’s STEM sectors; this has included funding more than 40 projects in the form of small grants to fund STEM-related projects in the region; working with Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment to offer a free undergraduate degree through the Millennium Point Scholarship.

Image 1 caption (left to right): Cas Majid (CEO of WOW Group), Abbie Vlahakis (Millennium Point CEO) and Bevil Williams (Managing Director at Repc Ltd) delivering laptops and equipment to Highfields School in Saltley

Image 2 caption: Entrance to Millennium Point.

Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands. Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint.

Here is one of the many projects that the programme has funded in 2020:

Who’s running the project?
City Road Primary School is situated in the Rotton Park area of north Edgbaston.

What’s it all about?
With support from Millennium Point Charitable Trust, City Road Primary School will create a Sensory Garden for its Early Years pupils. The EYFS (early years foundation stage) outdoor area has been chosen as the dedicated space for this project.

To start the project KS2 children will create designs based on given criteria (outline of the area, needs of children in Early Years, budget and safety aspects). The winning design will be a combination of ideas from children in each KS2 year group. The garden will feature plants (herbs and flowers), solar panel lighting, wind chimes, suncatchers, mirrors and birdhouses. Building raised beds for fruit and vegetables is also included in the project with room for expansion for a solar water feature, a seating area for quiet time and a colourful path linking all the areas depending on budget. The design aspect of this project will build pride in the school and children will hopefully develop a great sense of ownership for the development of the garden.

The sensory garden will provide a great stimulus for developing communication, social skills and an understanding of the world. The design and build of this project will promote STEM throughout the school and community and create a sustainable area which will support teaching and learning for all children as part of the Early Years outdoor learning strand and KS1 and 2’s Science curriculum. This should inspire children’s aspirations and understanding of STEM careers.

Who will benefit?
All pupils at City Road Primary will benefit. The Early Years children will have daily use of this exciting learning space to develop communication and social skills, while older children in other year groups will have a sense of responsibility as they will have time to maintain the area in the future. Sessions in the sensory garden will be embedded in the school’s curriculum, thereby ensuring that it will form part of the teaching of STEM subjects in subsequent academic years.

What they said:
Sarvjeet Jandu, Assistant Head Teacher, commented: “We are so excited about this project. A high percentage of our children are from a minority ethnic background within a socially deprived area. In the locality, there is a growing number of families living in overcrowded houses with no outdoor space and as a result, some of these children have little or no experience of growing plants outdoors or of the natural world. This project will expose them to new experiences which they would not otherwise have, understanding sustainability, growing and the importance of outdoor learning through play.

“Many of the KS2 students involved in the design of the garden have younger siblings in reception and nursery and will remember and discuss their time in the same area. The Sensory Garden will emphasise how we are linking learning across the school and promote the excellent work the children have done.”

When’s it all happening?
A grand opening will be planned during the early summer months to unveil the Sensory Garden. Once built, KS2 children will maintain the area and be responsible for its upkeep, as part of their science curriculum.