Trainees make an impressive entrance at infants school

Trainees from HMS Collingwood cheerfully braved biting winds and blizzards recently to help out at a local school.

HMS Collingwood has close links with Lee-on-the-Solent Infants School and organises regular visits to help out there, which are always popular with the sailors studying at the Base's Maritime Warfare School (MWS).

Ten trainees from the MWS Electronic Warfare and Underwater Warfare courses joined forces to clear overgrown sections of the School's grounds and prepare an area for a new greenhouse in time for the new growing season.

The School boasts beautiful surroundings, providing a wide range of teaching and play areas for the children, but the maintenance of such extensive grounds can prove challenging for staff. 

For example, outside the main entrance to the School, there was a tangle of overgrown bushes and shrubs which meant that children especially had trouble seeing over them as they approached the doors.

It also blocked light, raising health and safety issues for teachers working late into the evening and trying to exit along the path in darkness.

Now, thanks to the trainees' tireless efforts to cut down and clear the shrubbery, the area is flatter so children can view the entrance as they approach and the hope is ultimately to landscape the area and plant low-growing shrubs and bulbs.

Able Seamen (ABs) Sprigg and Skellorn helped to hack the bushes away and said, "It's really nice to get out of the classroom and do this. It's very satisfying work."

Head Teacher Julie Roche accompanied some of the children to inspect the trainees' work and said, "I am extremely grateful to the Navy cadets for all their hard work. The school grounds look so much better now and the front entrance is clearly visible.

"The cadets were amazing working in freezing cold conditions and achieving so much!"