IT’S been two years in the planning and building, but a school’s new games area has finally opened.

Holy Trinity Primary School, in Fordham Heath, Colchester, decided on a multi use games area (MUGA) following a vote by the pupils two years ago.

A year before that, the school decided to remove its old, derelict and redundant swimming pool because the cost of repairs and maintenance was too expensive for something only used for a few weeks each year. 

Once the pool was removed, headteacher Ceri Daniels worked with the school council and pupils to decide what to replace it with.

She said: “We wanted to offer something to all the pupils and all year round. The school council worked incredibly hard and ran surveys and analysed the findings.

“Two years ago the school voted on the top two options that the children asked for: A playground play area - adventure climbing frame; or a multi use games area.

“As you can see, the MUGA won. The whole project has been driven by the pupils and is for the pupils.

“I am delighted with the end result and so are the children

.”

The MUGA was opened officially by the Year 6 games captains Ezekiel Chan and Harrison Evans.

All the school attended the opening as did Luke Banner, from PentagonPlay, Nick Bagley, the premises manager, and two school governors, the Rev Francis Blight and chairman Paul Presland.

There was great excitement as Maple class, being the eldest children in the school, flooded onto the MUGA as its first official users.

Pupils were excited and happy with their new games area, with pupil Elliott saying: “I was scoring a lot, it was fun.”

“I can’t believe how brilliant this is,” added pupil Maisie.

And it wasn’t just the youngest who love the new area. Year 6 pupil Matilda said: “I think it’s cool because we now have a place where we can play lots of different sports.”

And Sam, also in Year 6, commented: “I am really excited to play sport on our new MUGA.”

Later this term, the school will be hosting an after-school event for the children who took part in driving forward the MUGA project but have now left.

“We feel it only right to offer them a chance to see what they were part of making,” says Ms Daniels.