Why Choose Shade Sails for Your School's Outdoor Area?

20 March 2018
 Categories: Home & Garden, Blog


If you own a daycare centre or manage any type of school, you need to consider whether the outdoor play area you provide for children is safe as well as comfortable. No doubt your first concern when it comes to safety will be the actual playground equipment, but ensuring the children in your care have adequate sun protection is also a very important consideration for any school or daycare facility. While you can choose an awning, pergola, or other such feature to provide needed shade, note a few reasons why shade sails may be the best option for any school or childcare centre.

Ventilation

Shade sails are not typically solid plastic, but are made with a nylon or canvas mesh material to allow for ventilation. This is very important for a school or daycare facility, as children can generate quite a bit of body heat when playing outside. Having heat from the sun and their own body heat trapped under an overhead metal awning can make summertime very uncomfortable for children, and may even lead to dehydration or other such illnesses. To keep the play area cool for your children, choose a shade sail with a loose weave, for lots of needed ventilation.

Colours

Younger children especially are drawn to bright, bold colours, and shade sails are often the easiest option for bringing colour into your outdoor space. You can find fun primary colours for your shade sails, or choose sails in the school's colours, mixing and matching them as needed; this might be one sail in yellow and one in blue, for example. For a childcare facility, you might choose shade sails in the same colour as your company logo, to carry the theme of your business even to the outdoor area.

Ease of maintenance and size

Wood structures like pergolas will need consistent resealing over the years and may easily splinter and chip when hit with toys or balls. While an awning attached to the building's exterior wall is durable, it may not be large enough to cover the entire play area outside.

However, shade sails are very easy to clean and need little to no maintenance over the years, and they won't get damaged by errant toys. They also offer maximum flexibility in their placement, as an installer can add poles in any area of your outdoor space and then stretch sails across them. You can then have shade on a play area, across lunch tables, over a pond, and the like, providing for maximum outdoor comfort.


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