Sussex school hosts epic winter lights trail – and it looks absolutely stunning

Run by the PTA volunteers and staff at Buckingham Park Primary School in Buckingham Road, Shoreham, at the end of November, it tried be as eco-friendly as possible.

All of the 483 children at the school decorated their own glass jam jar in class with their teachers. These jars were displayed in the woodland area which lit the trail and the children were proud to show their families.

In addition to the children’s lanterns, the school collaborated with Kasha Sawosko – Art & Design course leader from Chichester College and her students who made 15 light installations including a penguin, an igloo, a dragon, jellyfish and a turtle. The students from Chichester college spent weeks designing them as part of their work experience and then came to install them in the woodland area at the school on the day of the trail, adding in lights and smoke machines.

Madeleine Voice from the PTA said: “This addition enhanced the event enormously. The installations looked amazing and all of the children and families thoroughly enjoyed them.

“The school also had 10 very talented parents who took part in a competition to make their own larger scale lanterns which were featured at the front of the school. These all looked fabulous and again added another high-quality element to the trail.”

The school has received fantastic feedback via an in-school survey following the event which has included comments such as:

• The whole evening was spectacular.
• It was fantastic. Let’s go bigger next year.
• I thought this was the best school event I have ever been to and it was obvious how much effort had been put in.
• It was just an absolutely incredible evening. Pure magic for my little boys.
• It was the perfect start to my family’s Christmas season.

As this was the first time the PTA and school had run the event, the tickets available were limited to ensure that the event was safe and successful. They are very much hoping to be able to run this event again next year, on a larger scale, and make it more of a community event in Shoreham. Furthermore, the school would be very keen to work with other local colleges and organisations to enhance this further in 2025.

The Buckingham Park PTA volunteers and school staff would like to express their heart-felt thanks to everyone who attended on the night and supported their first winter trail. They also wanted to thank everyone who helped to make this event such a success including donating and cleaning jars, buying tickets, making lanterns, helping set up on the day, running stalls and coming back the next day to tidy up. This all contributed to making it such a success.

This event was very kindly sponsored by Michael Jones estate agents in Lancing, helping the school to raise a total of £2441.92 which will go towards an indoor sensory trail.