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A long-forgotten piece of land is on the way to becoming a precious new outdoor resource for students at Kaipara Flats School.
The Pony Paddock, as the land has been dubbed, had remained hidden behind pine trees and scrub at the rear of the school grounds for decades, but when trees were cut down during lockdown last year, staff realised there was a significant extra space for the school.
Teacher Maddy Tuffley said it was a magical discovery for staff and students alike, and the whole school was keen to develop the space into something that could be enjoyed by all ages.
“It is a space that has not been used for years and years, and was going to waste. The students and staff believed that we could make it a good space for learning and play and turn it into something truly wonderful,” she said.
She is working with six student leaders, school caretaker Robert Elcombe and environmental expert Ria Bright to clear the half-acre site, replant it and put some imaginative student ideas for its future into action. These include a lookout tower at the paddock’s highest point, a flying fox coming down from there towards the stream that forms its western border, a reading nook, some stepping stones and a lavender maze.
Students have been designing these features on their computers, assessing plants and testing the soil, designing and distributing flyers for fundraising and seeking help from local plant nurseries and Mitre 10 to source sponsorship and suitable native plants. They will also be conducting tours of the Pony Paddock during the school’s annual Show Day in October.
“The PTA are helping us raise money and we’re getting donations from the community,” Tuffley said.
“Two local plant nurseries are also helping and gave us heaps of advice on natives. We’re going to try to keep it as natural as possible.
“We have broken down the project into three stages and stage one is just taking off – we are slashing the grass and preparing for planting. Ideally, we’d be planting now, but we’ve had so much rain, we couldn’t get in until recently, so it’s next May we’ll be planting.”
She added that the Pony Paddock name came from stories she’d been told about the land originally being used as a place where students could leave their horses after they had ridden them to school years ago.
