Uig Primary – Isle of Skye
We built our first wall on the fantastic Isle of Skye. And no where better to start than the idyllic school of Uig Primary. This school only has 9 Pupils! What a perfect way to brighten up playtime and bring some new talent to Scottish Climbing. Skye is best known for the Cuillin Ridge with some of the best ‘Alpine’ style mountains on the mainland. Hopefully this wall will encourage these kids to explore these mountains climbing in the future. This wall is 7.5 Metre Direct Fix.
Miller Primary – Thurso
Kenny Russell (Active Schools Coordinator) was successful gaining an ‘awards for all’ grant to help with this wall which makes use of a brilliant featured natural stone wall. With corners to negotiate it has loads of interest with the directly fitted holds. It just shows how versatile these walls can be to ‘any’ available space.
Avoch – Black Isle
Janine Webb (Head Teacher) and Nicola Yea (Active Schools Coordinator) have worked hard to raise the money for this project which we have just completed. They opted to have two walls. One for the Lower School and Nursery, and one for the Upper School. Both walls really add interest and attraction to the exterior of the building. The big wall takes in the corner which adds a brilliant climbing feature.
Munlochy Primary – Black Isle
On this occasion we fitted a gravel pit as well because of a raised drain cover which meant the ground level had to come up to meet this obstruction. This was previously a muddy area with bushes. Now it looks fantastic with matching traverse wall making excellent use of an otherwise useless part of the playground. We are really pleased with the finished product at Munlochy. Well done to the Headteacher Mhairi Schmitt for bringing this project to reality.
Craiglochart Primary – Edinburgh
This is our first school in Edinburgh and a cracker at that! We had the pleasure of adding the first activity station to a whole playground upgrade. Perfectly placed in the school shelter they have an all-weather facility. The wall was pre-painted before we added the holds a number of years ago, but it really makes this part of the playground a great place to be. On this wall we used Direct Fix. Beatrice Bryant and Erin Jackson, both teachers at Craiglochart masterminded this project.
Home Training Wall - Inverness
Extreme Dream just built two lucky young talented climbers their own Training unit! Cameron and Douglas Caroll from Inverness have now got one of the best home training facilities in Scotland. They have a 45 – 35 degree board, roof, fingerboards, system, board and campus rungs!!! Along with a roofed and overhanging wall. These guys did really well to make it to National Finals this year at Ratho in Edinburgh so we expect great things from them this year! We are proud to have them on the Extreme Dream Youth Team. Good Luck Guys.
Dalneigh Primary
Dalneigh Primary in Inverness is one of the biggest schools in the area. They have successfully managed to continue their drive for excellent school facilities by adding one of our walls to the inside of one of the sheds giving a huge all weather indoor climbing traverse wall. We had hardly finished the wall when the kids (more than 30 of them) all ended up on the wall at once causing gridlock – now that’s keen. Well done to Peta Law Active Schools Coordinator and Annette Clunas - Headteacher for their great work fundraising for this project. This is another great school to join our Inter schools climbing Network this Autumn.
Inverasdale Primary - Gairloch
Last weekend we completed Scotland's Longest / Biggest school traverse climbing wall in Inverasdale near Poolewe / Gairloch in the North West Highland of Scotland. This superb facility might just help train the sheep to scale even bigger walls - we witnessed two fat sheep jump over a very high wall. We look forward to seeing some amazing kids of the future coming from the North West, an area with some of the best climbing in Scotland.
Upper Achintore Primary
This exciting project fitted perfectly onto an excellent existing Mural painted by the school in an, all weather, enclosed part of the school. This wall had some fantastic features to work with, columns, corners and perfect flat stone to put the holds on. This wall is the second to be installed in Fort William along with our other wall at Caol Primary. This is all down to the dedicated fundraising and organisation of Bridget Thomas the Active Schools Coordinator for the area.
Invergarry Primary
This is a beautiful little rural school with a tremendous and perfectly chipped corner of the school that was otherwise unutilised. It provided some interesting challenges for us with a combination of Direct Fix, Ply Panels and a Boxed Drain pipe. All in it has worked perfectly giving a wall with tremendous diversity of angles and route setting potential. We ran a session here for the school as well enthusing the kids about all the possible ways to make the wall more challenging. Bridget Thomas and Matt McIver are the Coordinators for the Fort / Drumnadrochit Cluster.
Crown Primary
Set in the heart of Inverness this listed building more reminiscent (because of the grandeur) of Private Schools has a very active bunch of teachers and a very forward thinking and exciting program of ongoing development. The nursery area looks tremendous (wish I was 4 again). Here we were proud to install two massive 10 metre + walls allowing us to tailor the routes to the Lower and Upper School. Something that only one wall at a school makes very challenging to a route setter. The second wall for the Lower School was very conveniently situated inside an old shed giving an all weather facility on old stone making it much more realistic to the real thing. Another one of Carolyn Wards Schools who was helped by Sheila Cottam to raise the necessary money for this wall.
Daviot Primary
Daviot just south of Inverness is a small school full of crazy keen kids. The head teacher Rachel Mohin is a keen climber herself and probably spends more time on the wall than the kids (only joking). We placed some alphabet holds on this wall as well as some numbered holds but the problem is that if you break one that’s the whole set bust and at £100 a set that’s a bit expensive! So luckily we managed with care on an uneven surface to get them up. It’s very well used judging by the holds brightening up the side of the school nicely. Carolyn Ward worked closely with Rachel to make this wall a reality for the kids.
Duror Primary
This old school set just a few miles from Glencoe is very active, always out skiing, walking and when inside surrounded by an unbelievable array of exciting pictures drawings and projects. Outside we were lucky to install a brilliant wall passing a drain pipe which made a really nice feature to climb around. Only a mile from one of the nicest beaches in that part of the world Caol Beach its in a lovely location. Direct fix here was the obvious option. Ruari Watt the Active Schools Coordinator for the Glencoe Cluster was behind the drive to get this wall installed.
Balnain Primary
The ever keen Matt McIver got on the phone and had us touring the west with him looking at all his schools. Desperate to do the best for his schools he had us start on the lovely school of Balnain near Drumnadrochit. The school is of the Old Style with brilliant walls for fixing directly to and where we were able to place them there was a good corner to turn adding brilliant interest. They decided to add some gravel to this wall under one section just to stop mud ingress into the holds making them last longer.
Cairngorm Mountain
We had the opportunity to provide the hill, one of our partner businesses in Aviemore with a superb little wall very relevant to the environment. Kids visiting this attraction can now get some climbing in at the same time outside the ranger base.
Aviemore Primary
Aviemore were fortunate to receive their wall FREE. As a gesture of good will to the community and the kids we teamed up with Spey valley Hire who provided the wood, Baldow Smithy who provided us with the Steel and we did the rest to give a 4 Panel Climbing Traverse Wall for the kids to play on. Simple but very effective – the queue in the morning is testament to the addictive and simple, never ending development these walls offer year on year.
Caol Primary
Caol have one of the biggest Panel Walls we have ever Build. It is an amazing addition at 7 Panels Long. Rhona Grindley was determined to make this project work and even got the kids in the school climbing the height of Everest up the school stairs in a day! to raise enough money to meet the shortfall. They did very well, receiving money from Grounds for Learning and Awards for all to make it possible assisted by Bridget Thomas the Active Schools Coordinator for the Area.
Abernethy Primary
We are pleased to have just completed another wall at Abernethy Primary near Aviemore. Howard Edge the Head Teacher and Irene Blease the Active Schools Coordinator managed to secure an Active Schools Grant. The wall we installed has two big sections, one of 4 Panels for the Nursery with larger holds and a 5 panel wall with smaller holds, more technical climbing and bigger reaches. The wall has been left in white as they are going to have a school painting / mural project to add a colourful and topical scene.
We hope the kids get years of great climbing out of the walls and we see some new climbing stars at Extreme Dream soon in Aviemore.