Cheltenham Girls’ High School, a local comprehensive school established in 1958, is located on the former Vicars Family Estate in Parramatta. The school values its history, celebrates its heritage, treasures student achievement, and offers a broad range of curriculum enrichment programs.
As part of this focus on academic excellence, the school wanted to upgrade its sporting facilities to offer heightened learning experiences for its students. The existing synthetic turf netball courts were well-worn and in need of replacement, so the school’s leadership team engaged Preferred Turf to design and deliver a brand new multi-sports surface over the 2022/23 summer holidays.
Working in partnership with the school, the Preferred Turf team designed a multipurpose space that could be used for many different sports and activities, including netball, volleyball, and European handball, along with an extended side area for leisure and relaxation.
The project called for a durable, medium-height pile synthetic turf, and our 18mm Multisports Grass was a perfect fit for the new sports courts. Available in vibrant colours including green, terracotta, blue, yellow and white, this product provided the best balance of aesthetics and robustness. Using several colours for line marking allowed us to demarcate distinct areas in the design for different sports.
Ensuring we completed this project in time for students to return in Term 1 2023 was a key deliverable, and our installation team worked efficiently to meet this requirement.
The courts were located on the far side of the school’s main oval, with difficult access which required our team to shift all site supplies across this oval whilst also taking care to preserve its surface. We overcame this issue by being selective with machinery used on site and laying ground protection mats to minimise damage to the grass oval.
To complicate matters, once across the oval, our team also had to navigate a narrow winding path and a hill whilst removing around 100 tonnes of old synthetic turf. However, as with all the educational projects we have completed, overcoming access challenges is simply a part of delivering high-quality results for our clients.
Our installation crew laid the new synthetic turf without fuss and detailed the surface with an intricate line marking design, including adding curved broken lines for playing European handball.
This major upgrade to the school’s existing netball courts was delivered on time and under budget – despite complex access and unpredictable weather, the project was completed and ready for students to enjoy on Day 1 of Term 1, 2023.
Over 1,250 square metres of multi-sports turf graces the new courts, providing a safe, comfortable and creative space for students to enjoy many different sports. It was an honour to see this prestigious school’s vision through to completion and provide them with a brilliant new low-maintenance sporting facility.
Preferred Turf is a reputable supplier and installer of synthetic turf surfaces for schools throughout Sydney. We specialise in sports fields, courts and play areas – get in touch with our team to discuss your school’s sports field project.
