This week our upper elementary students have started back at school with a special treat awaiting them… a brand new playground! While most of the campus was enjoying the winter break, our facilities team and contractors were hard at work building this great new space for our students to enjoy. You will see from the photos and in person, that this new playground has a fresh, modern look and it has been designed by experts in adolescent movement, parkour and freerunning.

The materials are more durable and more flexible in terms of different options on how to build them. The movements that it invites are inspired by the up and coming world of free running or parkour. This is a creative and challenging way of using the available structures in a swift way for exercise and fun.

The aim behind this new playground is to encourage this freedom of movement for our upper elementary students and for them to embrace a more physical way of experiencing the environment around them. These ideas behind parkour and freerunning have been a focus of our students’ physical education classes as they have learned how to safely enjoy this new space.

It is our hope here at ASH that this playground will further unlock creativity for our students, as they decide how they can best enjoy and play with the equipment and the structure. At this age level, it is expected that parkour can help assist the development of coordination and encourage a feeling of freedom.