The Tucabia Public School has just erected a large shade sail in the school grounds, which was a gift from the Ulmarra community.

Tucabia Public School principal Heath Simpson said that the shade sail was offered to the school by Steve Pickering from the Ulmarra Progress Association.

“The Ulmarra community had fund raised the money for the shade sail structure which was over the Ulmarra Pool and when the pool shut down, it remained the property of the community,” Mr Simpson said.

“The shade sail had been offered to a number of people and we accepted.

“They sent it out to us, but it’s taken a while to go through council, to get the DA approval to erect it.

“So, we’ve finally got it erected and now that the students are starting to come back to school, we’ll make great use of it.

“I posted it on my school’s Facebook page and emailed photos of it to some of my students and they are all so excited and said how great it looks and they couldn’t wait to see it and make use of the area.

“It only took a couple of days to erect, however a structure of that size takes specialised people to put it up – it’s not just a little marquee.

“It has replaced a timber structure which had been built by the community here at the school about 25 years ago and it had started to become dilapidated.

“So, it was very timely, as we were starting to wonder how we were going to repair that structure and then we received this beautiful new steel and shade mesh sail – maintenance free.

“We’d like to say thank you so much to the Ulmarra community for the wonderful donation to our school which we will use very happily and thank you to Steve Pickering for his ongoing support of our school and the community,” he said.