What does COLA stand for?Covered Outdoor Learning Area.

COLA stands for Covered Outdoor Learning Area. It's a roofed open-air space on a school site (a hard court, an assembly slab or a play yard with a structure over it) used for sport, lessons, lunch and assemblies in almost any weather.

Why NSW schools build them

UV is at its worst between ten and two, which is exactly when the yard is full. Shade cloth blocks up to 99% of UV, so a covered court is still comfortable at eleven in the morning in February. Shaded asphalt also stops baking all morning and throwing that heat back at the children standing on it.

• Sport and PE keep running through summer, and through light rain.
• Assemblies, band practice and canteen queues get somewhere to go when the hall is booked.
• A class can be taught outside without everyone squinting.
• Wet-weather timetables stop collapsing into the library.

There's a maintenance argument too. A covered slab takes far less weather than one sitting in full sun and full rain, so line markings, rebound walls and goals all last longer.

Hip roof or multi-sail: the two shapes a COLA takes

A hip-roof COLA is a steel frame carrying a pitched roof, with hips at the ends, a ridge down the middle and sheeting or waterproof membrane over the top. It sheds water, so the space underneath stays dry and usable in rain, and it gives you a clean rectangular footprint that suits a netball or basketball court almost exactly. It's the heavier of the two builds, and it needs clear ground for its columns.

The multi-sail version is a set of tensioned fabric sails on masts, overlapping so the shade reads as one canopy. The sails curve, which makes the whole thing look lighter than it is and lets wind spill off the fabric instead of pushing flat against it. Sails can be flown high and wide from fewer posts, which is what you want over a play yard already full of equipment.

What drives the build

The first number we want is the span. Everything else sizes off it, from the steel down to the footings. The rest of this list is worth having answers to before the first visit.

• Span and size. A full netball court is a very different structure to a sandpit cover, and you see the difference in the columns first.
• Engineering and wind. Every structure is engineered to the wind region for its site under the NSW codes and standards. An exposed ridge or a coastal site carries more load than a sheltered courtyard.
• Ground conditions. Footings are designed for what is under the surface. Rock, fill and reactive clay all behave differently.
• Site access. Whether a crane and a truck can reach the spot, and whether the work can happen while the school is occupied. Staged or out-of-hours work changes the program.
• What is already there. Drainage, power, sewer and existing slabs decide where a column can and cannot land.
• Membrane. Breathable shade cloth for UV and heat, waterproof PVC for all-weather use. That choice changes the frame under it.
• Clearances. Height for ball sports, and fall zones under play equipment.

How a COLA gets paid for, and when it gets built

School shade is rarely paid for out of one pocket. Budget, P&C fundraising, community money and a grant tend to go in together, and a grant application asks for dimensions, an engineer's sign-off and a price. There's a separate guide to which programs are open and which have closed.

A grant round closes months before anyone builds, and on a live school site the install belongs in a holiday window, so plan backwards from the term you want it finished by.

The measure, the drawings, the specifications and the engineering documentation an assessor asks for all come out of the same job we do to quote it. We design, manufacture and install from our own Rydalmere factory, so what you submit is what we make.

Need a sense of scale before you take it to the P&C? Five questions and you get a realistic range. Try the instant estimate →