Youngsters on Toynbee Hall’s youth project called Make It have done just that—making their own outdoor classroom.

East London Advertiser: Learning teamwork through Toynbee Hall's 'Make It' programme. Picture: TOYNBEE HALLLearning teamwork through Toynbee Hall's 'Make It' programme. Picture: TOYNBEE HALL (Image: Archant)

The Year 8 pupils from George Green’s School on the Isle of Dogs and from Lister Community School in Plaistow teamed up to build the open learning space in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park at Mile End as part of a community learning project.

They worked with the Build Up Foundation to learn how to make the structure which has been assembled on the site of the old Dissenters’ Chapel.

The foundation runs practical construction projects for youngsters to design and make lasting structures, teaching the skills to build something that they can use permanently.

East London Advertiser: Learning teamwork through Toynbee Hall's 'Make It' programme. Picture: TOYNBEE HALLLearning teamwork through Toynbee Hall's 'Make It' programme. Picture: TOYNBEE HALL (Image: Archant)

The programme is run by Toynbee Hall in schools for 12 and 13-year-olds, with one-to-one mentoring and group sessions based on a project usually over eight months to raise self-confidence and communication skills while combatting social isolation and improving ‘engagement’ with their school.

It stretches their ‘comfort zones’ and gets them to rely on one another as a team, creating projects like the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park’s new outdoor learning space.