Arty students brighten up retirement living village

Schoolchildren have added some sparkle to the walls of a new £12m retirement living village in Banbury after taking part in an end-of-term art competition.

We opened our latest retirement living scheme, Park Gardens, back in October and recently teamed up with nearby Dashwood Banbury Academy to offer pupils of all age groups the opportunity to enter the ‘when I grow up, I want to be’ art competition.

More than 40 colourful entries were received and residents of the Bath Road development then decided on three winners during a coffee morning earlier this month. On Wednesday 18th December, a special art exhibition was held where residents, pupils, parents and teachers visited Park Gardens to see the dazzling pictures adorning the walls of the scheme. The three winners were presented with book tokens and their framed artwork as a special school assembly marked the students’ achievements.

Bromford has also donated £500 to the school’s double-decker library bus to enable the learning space to be refitted, more books to be bought, and an outdoor reading area created for the summer months.

Sales manager Claire Richardson said: “Dashwood Academy is a wonderful local school and this competition and the donation towards the mobile library was really about linking up with a key part of the Banbury community and starting to forge positive relationships between residents and pupils and teachers at the school.

“We received some brilliant entries which are now hanging proudly in the Hobbies Room at Park Gardens. This partnership will go from strength to strength and last week students also came to perform a carol service before breaking up for Christmas which was a pretty special occasion.”

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Amy Rogers, principal at Dashwood Banbury Academy, added: “The children were really excited about the art competition and the prizes given by Bromford. We are delighted to have established more links within the community which give our children great life experiences.

“We are looking forward to many future events and would like to thank Bromford for their kind donation which has enabled us to buy more books for our library bus.”

There are still a range of apartments available for over 55s at Park Gardens, which sits adjacent to People’s Park and benefits from a number of onsite facilities including a café bistro, hair and beauty salon, and gymnasium. Anyone interested should call 01295 272848 or head to this page for further information.