Timeline of our relationship with St Mark's Catholic Primary School
20th September
Today we met with the headteacher.
The aim of the sessions today was to start thinking about projects we could put into action over the year. After meeting with Dr Kellar, we went outside and looked at the space available and brainstormed ideas for wildlife. The potential at St Marks is huge and we had lots of ideas brimming by the end including:
1. Wildflower meadow
2. Bird boxes
3. Orchard and tree planting
After the session we sent St Marks links that they could apply for trees and compost with!
16th November
We began collecting data ...
During our visit we started by introducing the project to year 4. We explained who we were and what we wanted to achieve at their school.
Once we had completed our presentation, we got the children to do Nature connection surveys that we could use for comparison at the end of the 3 years. The rest of the day we spent mapping their school grounds.
Splitting into small groups we used tape measures to record the diameter of spaces such as long grass vs cut grass and the lengths of hedgerow we already had. We also counted the number of trees and features such as flower beds, bug hotels and log piles. This gave us a great basis to start from.
We measured the cut grass and worked out the school had roughly 4,684 squared meters! In comparrison there was no long grass.
One of the maps a child drew when they thought of what their school grounds looked like at the start of the project.
23rd January
Beginning work!
Today we started work on mapping out and creating our wildflower meadow. Even Dr Kellar came down and got involved with the project. The children loved ripping up their school field and were full of excitement about what it would become. We also had received word that the school had been awarded the trees for their project from a funding link we had sent them!
23rd April
Exciting updates!
We have had exciting updates from the school as we prepare to visit them next week to build nest boxes for next year and talk about the next stages of the project.
They have planted 21 fruit trees and 7 berry plants and over 50 other small trees!
