Introduction 

Building on a project which we started last year, our School Council were keen to continue to encourage biodiversity, whilst helping to conserve our local natural spaces. They decided this should be a whole school project and set about encouraging their classmates to get involved. 

 

Mini Journalists

Our school newspaper, Loughton News, visited the local allotments to learn more about nature and cultivating plants. Our journalists in the making then wrote about their findings, sharing these not only with the school, but within the local community, via their ‘Padlet’, an on-line notice board. 

        

 

Butterflies and Bees

Through building our relationship with our local Parish Council and a local biodiversity campaigner, we were lucky enough to have been gifted 150 packets of wildflower seeds, some blackcurrant bushes, sweet peas, sunflowers, and a mix of perennial plants. As well as looking pretty, the wildflowers will encourage crucial pollinators bees and butterflies to the area. We were also able to purchase some beautiful nature books through their kind donation, which are now available for all children to borrow through our school library. 

                  

 

Litter and History Walks

Most recently, our Year 3 and Year 5 children have been out walking in the local area. The Year 5 children took their litter pickers and collected several bags of rubbish to improve the appearance of our local area, thereby preventing damage and destruction to local wildlife. 

Our Year 3s took a learning walk to find out all about the history of the area, discovering that despite Milton Keynes being officially only just over 50 years old, it has a wide and varied history dating back hundreds of years, with the famous Roman road, Watling Street, running through it, as well as links to the Victorian era, even having a post box that still has the letters VR inscribed on it!

                

 

Our School Courtyard

Within our school we had an internal area of land that had fallen into disrepair. We fundraised through an initiative called 'break the rules day' where children could donate 20p for each rule they chose to break, such as not wearing school uniform, bringing in juice instead of water and being allowed to eat their mid-morning snack in class. We raised around £500 and this was matched by local donors, giving us plenty of funds to improve the land, including planting fruit trees, lavender, rosemary and other small plants. 

 

                    

          

We also purchased a selection of outdoor games to induce a community feel to the newly developed courtyard area.

Some comments made about the area include:

"Beyond my wildest dream – there was so much that I didn’t expect!" – William, Year 5

"People will definitely have fun with all the exciting things we’ve put in the courtyard!" – Kai, Year 3

"I like that there are fruit trees to nurture" Emmy, Year 6

                      

Getting Active!

In an effort to draw attention to the rising impact of travelling to school by car, in the spring term, we signed up to the national initiative ‘Sustrans’, which encourages children and their families to walk, ride or scoot to school. Across the school, we had excellent engagement, with up to 75% of children choosing to come to school by eco-friendlier means – and all during a rather wet few weeks! We were also awarded for the second year in a row with the Sports Mark gold award for encouraging our children to get active by taking part in running, sports clubs, daily support with PE and attendance at festivals and fixtures.

The Outcome

Thanks to the efforts of our pupils and their families, our staff and the local community, our school and the local area are positively blooming! 

Local biodiversity campaigner, Judith Heinemann commented,

"I can't tell you how much I appreciated your thank you note and the lovely photos. It makes our hard work to help restore nature worthwhile.  So lovely to see the engagement of the children."

We are very proud of the work our school community has undertaken in the local area and have been so impressed with the energy and enthusiasm our pupils have demonstrated!