Gordon Giltrap

came to play at our school!!!WOW...we had a surprise concert in the atrium and in the sparkly room in the nursery!

Gordon Giltrap who played at the City Hall on Thursday evening had asked to come and visit our school today. He brought his guitar and played some of his music in the atrium.
It was dinner time and lots of children (and staff) came to watch and listen.

We sat on the reception desk to listen.
Gordon played: Maddie goes west, Dublin Day, Heartsong and Lucifers Cage. Afterwards he signed autographs and someone printed out some information about him from the internet. You can find out more about his music if you follow this link to his website.

http://www.giltrap.co.uk/

We've had a busy weekend...We went along on Saturday to help plant over 600 plants on the bio-diverse teaching terrace.

Here we are sniffing the 'Thymus pseudoanuginosus' before it is planted!
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Nigel (Sheff Uni), Jeff (from the Green Roof Centre) and Anita (HSBC) made sure we knew what was going where.

Pete, Peter, Gavin, Wendy, Barrie, Geoff and Cath then helped to carry all the plants up to the terrace, take the weeds out and plant all the plants. You can hardly see some of the plants as they are just a few sticks (apparently they'll grow next year) but some were more than a metre tall!
There was a big list of special plants that like dry soils, they should like it in the bio-roof substrate that is on the terrace. Things like Achillea 'Walter Funcke', Kniphofia 'Nancy's Red' and Stachys byzantia 'Big Ears'. Plants do have funny names, apparently they are 'Latin' (a very old language).

It looks very different now and we hope folks like it. A bit of rain would be good to give all the plants a good drink. Keep your fingers crossed for lots of flowers and interesting wildlife in the next year.

The BLOG is 2 years old so we've had a drink to celebrate!HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY

SHARROW SCHOOL gets award

The Sharrow School construction partnership were recognised for their environmental committment at a ceremony held at Magna last Wednesday evening. Cath the Architect from Sheffield Design & Project Management went with David from KIER SHEFFIELD to receive the finalist (runner-up) award from the sponsors of the Design Build category Halliwells alongside Paul Hudson (the LOOK NORTH weatherman) see below.

Our table, Kevin stands up to be helpful as usual...

'Sheffield's new Sharrow School, which opened this summer, claims to be the greenest school in the UK.With its radical bio diverse roof and ground source heat pump, it is setting the standard for schools in the future.Construction at Sharrow has been undertaken by Kier Sheffield but the project has been a hugely successful partnership alongside Sheffield City Council, the University of Sheffield's Green Roof Centre, Eco Heat Pumps and others..Mark Peat, head of capacity, planning and development for the council, said: "This innovative project would not have possible had it not been for the vision and commitment of the partnership. Over time, I look forward to seeing it add value to the learning experience of the pupils.''Kevin Taylor, construction manager for Kier Sheffield, said: "The use of innovative features will make the school a modern and incredible place to learn.''Previously split between two sites, infant and junior, pupils and staff are now all together in the new building, together with a new nursery facility.'

Photos and text courtesy of Sheffield Telegraph website, see link below for further information

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/CustomPages/CustomPage.aspx?pageid=70054

HSBC
will be back again this weekend...

Those folks at the bank must really love us! They just keep coming back to help with things! The plants for the teaching terrace on the first floor will be arriving soon and they will be planted on October 20th. Hopefully the seeding of the main roof by folks at the Green Roof Centre will also take place shortly after that and the greening of the stormwater planter as well.

We're so excited to see what it will be like!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE SOME FAB NEW ROOMS...
This is a typical classroom double class base with lots of light from the big window, a long worktop where the sinks are and round the corner is a quiet area a little bit away from the main space. We also have our own toilets in each classbase and a store cupboard for storing things.

This is the top floor of the staircase in the atrium. We can see all around it and it lets the light down into the middle of the school.

Can you guess what room this is? It is the studio...for music, drama, physiotherapy and anything else you can think of! It has some floor to ceiling mirrors, lots of cupboards (some of them for you to sit on) and special acoustics (designed for making a noise).

This time we even had a bit of money saved so that all the school's hard working staff have a nice new staff room. It has a place to work, somewhere for sitting and a nice kitchen area.

WE'RE FAMOUS

We have been invited to London by the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers to a conference on Green Roofs at the Society of Chemical Industry Headquaters. We are to present a case study (that just means the story) because they have heard about the special roof that Sharrow School has and they want to know more about it.

Our friend Jeff from the Sheffield Green Roof Centre was originally going to do it but thought we were more involved with the project!

I think we might just have to ask Cath (the Architect) along with us so she can help us get around! If you follow the link below you can find out more about the conference.

http://www.cibse.org/index.cfm?go=events.view&item=3019

THANK YOU...

Cath (the Architect) got a beautiful batik picture that had been made by the children. What gorgeous colours.

WHEN IT'S QUIET...
...you can see how lovely it is. Can you see us on the counter?