The wolf may huff and he may puff, but he won't succeed in blowing Bute Cottage Nursery's straw classroom down. The nursery children know this because they actually helped build it out of sustainable and recycled materials.
With the help of parents, staff and volunteers from the local community in Penarth, near Cardiff, it took two years to erect the round house. The children were involved at every stage. 'Quite often buildings are cordoned off so children can't see what is happening, but our children helped lay the foundations, build the walls and insulate them,' says headteacher Ceri Hoffrock.
She believes the building process has provided big educational benefits. 'We could have built an ordinary extension or used a temporary building that would have arrived in a day, but the children wouldn't have had the whole process leading up to it. They now understand that building a house does not just involve walls - the land has to be prepared and foundations need laying too,' she says.
'Three sets of children came through the nursery while the classroom was being constructed and there were a lot of brothers and sisters involved, who have come back to see how it has developed. It has been a long process, but it wouldn't have meant as much to the children and the whole community if we'd done this any other way.'
Planning and donating
The construction project developed out of a need for extra room in the small nursery, which was filled to capacity. Bute Cottage already had two Eco-school green flags and it wanted to create something that would be sustainable and fit with its green ethos.
A newspaper article about a sustainable round house made of straw sparked the idea for the building. Staff members gathered information from books and the internet and arranged a meeting of interested parents to discuss the potential project. They shared the nursery's enthusiasm and agreed that recycled and sustainable materials should be used and that it would be funded by donations from local businesses and fundraising.
Some of the parents themselves had relevant skills that proved invaluable, including three architects, a surveyor and builders.
Letters were sent to environmentally-friendly companies in Penarth, local organisations and businesses explaining their plans. It quickly became a community initiative, with donations of materials and offers of labour from all sections of the community.
'We could not have done it without the community, who gave their all,' says Ms Hoffrock.
'To build a traditional extension would have been much quicker, but also much more expensive - around £40,000 - whereas we spent just over £5,000 in the end, and at much less cost to the environment. There were very few materials used that had not been used elsewhere before.'
Packing and shaping
A solid base for the classroom was made out of around 130 old tyres donated by a farmer. Children enjoyed rolling the tyres to the building site and packing them with soil, clay and rubble to form a rigid base, with assistance from local firefighters as well as parents.
Probably the easiest part of the build was erecting the straw bale walls. 'The beauty of straw bales is that they're easily shaped,' explains Ms Hoffrock. But they did have to wait until there was a dry day forecast, because if the straw got wet it would rot and be unusable. Under supervision from an expert, the bales were stacked seven bales high around the outside of the foundations. They were secured with hazel pegs. Building the walls took just five hours.
Surplus doors and windows were donated by a local supplier. Conveyor belts, originally from Aberthaw Power Station and local coal mines, were sourced from Cardiff Recycling and used to waterproof the roof.
A local contractor showed parents how to apply clay render to the straw walls. They deliberately left an area uncovered so that children could still see the straw - this porthole has been named the 'truth window'.
Once the render had been applied, the children agreed that the classroom looked like a proper building. They wanted their new building to be pink, so pink lime wash was applied to the outer walls and then white was used inside to reflect as much natural light as possible.
Donated furniture and chairs from a nearby primary school finished off the classroom. 'We don't get rid of anything here,' Ms Hoffrock says with a laugh.
Job done
Everyone's hard work culminated in the classroom being completed earlier this year and officially opened by Welsh education minister Jane Hutt. To the children's great excitement, Sportacus and Stephanie from the TV programme 'Lazytown' also visited to celebrate the tremendous effort they'd put in.
In hot countries, buildings constructed in a similar fashion can last up to 100 years. Unfortunately, Bute Cottage's straw building will not last so long. But with good maintenance it can be expected to stand for at least ten years or more.
'Building the straw classroom was a huge eye-opener for us,' Ms Hoffrock reflects. 'Quite often my deputy and I wondered why we had started the project, because it was such a huge undertaking on top of running a nursery school. But we had so much to gain from it that it was well worth our time.
'We would recommend it to anyone but advise them not to build a round classroom - it's much easier to build a square one. But the children did want it to be round and also pink, and they're thrilled with it.'
They were all eager to start using the classroom, which still smells of straw inside. Many of the children are still excited to talk about what they and their parents did, and the nursery has a construction area in which they mirror the different processes.
'It is a shame that the children who start nursery in September will not have been part of the building process. We'll just have to show them all the photos,' says Ms Hoffrock. 'It's an interesting looking building with slightly odd shaped walls, and it's a bit dented, but actually it doesn't look like it's built of straw. It's so cosy inside - and we all enjoy being there.'
