Edinburgh school in playground makeover competition – you can help!

Murrayburn Primary School in Sighthill is the only Scottish school still in with a chance of winning a makeover for their playground. The Ronseal Playground Project is a competition that will give one school £30,000 to transform their playground facilities.

Murrayburn is in the final six with the competition being decided on Facebook and the school to receive most ‘likes’ on their playground picture will be declared the winner. The only feature in their playground, a wooden train, was removed due to safety issues.

[caption id="attachment_16478" align="alignright" width="320" caption="Murrayburn children need your help!"][/caption]

Unfortunately, Murrayburn is at a disadvantage as they have broken up for the summer holidays, so for example they are unable to send information home to parents and friends to get their support. The other schools in the final six are still in session.

We spoke to the chair of the parent council at Murrayburn, Carol Swan who said:-”It would mean everything to the children. There are no play facilities at all, so this would be a real treat. The large structure in place previously was ruined by bad weather such as the snow. If we were to win the money it would be an amazing start.”

The closing date for the competition is Friday 15th July 2011. Visit their Facebook page and like the playground picture to help them win the competition. 

Scottish Power Schools Competition

Primary teachers across Scotland are being encouraged to nominate their school business for the ScottishPower Schools Best Budding Business competition.

The utility company will reward the most enterprising primary school and is looking to find out what school pupils have accomplished to date in setting up their own businesses.

ScottishPower is on the look out for school ventures which encourage youngsters to be entrepreneurial and those which show excellent promise as strong business idea.

By taking part and nominating their school project, teachers and pupils could win £1,000 for their school.

Head of SME at ScottishPower, Mark Pettican, was delighted to unveil the new initiative and is looking for as many schools in Scotland as possible to get involved.

Speaking of the launch of the new competition, he said:-

“The ScottishPower Schools Best Budding Business hopes to support young business people of the future and encourage them to think about their projects and initiatives.

“This is the first year of our competition and we are really looking forward to receiving entries and reading about all the great potential business men and women out there.

“We are delighted to be enabling schoolchildren to gain recognition for their excellent business endeavours. This is an ideal way to give confidence to youngsters to excel in business from an early age.”

All schools have to do to take part in the competition is to write a letter, in no more than 400 words, detailing a current business initiative run by pupils and highlight its achievements to date.  They have to tell us about what they do, make or sell, how many pupils are involved, how the project came about and its successes.

Entries should arrive no later than Friday 8th October 2010 and be posted or emailed to Susanne Grant at The BIG Partnership, 5 Park Circus Place, Glasgow, G3 6AH or    susanne.grant@thebigpartnership.co.uk