Wilder School - Carlton Colville

Wild Learning Officer  Jo Shackleton visited Carlton Colville Primary School for our first Wilder Schools session. We began the day with an assembly to the whole school, introducing them to Wilder Schools.

We then began work with year 3. The children took part in a nature connection survey and drew pictures of how they perceive the school grounds in their current state, giving us some good ideas of what’s important to them in their outdoor space.

Next the children carried out an audit of the school grounds and the existing habitats. We measured the size of the playground and the meadow area and counted the number of trees. We then explored the wildlife area and recorded how many minibeast homes, log piles, nest boxes and pollinator pitstops that are already present.

We delivered a Twilight training session for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) team.

The team wanted to know how they could enhance their outdoor area for wildlife and to provide more outdoor learning opportunities. We walked around the outdoor area with the team, making suggestions for easy ways that they could create more space for wildlife, such as introducing planters containing bee-friendly plants and leaving a section of grass un-mown. We then discussed examples of environmental and outdoor learning activities that they could carry out with their classes.

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Today we visited year 3 for the second time. They were really excited to get outside and look for signs of wildlife that is already using the school grounds. We carried out some minibeast hunting in the wildlife area and then explored the potential for creating more space for nature by finding out about the requirements of different animals, such as Hedgehogs, bumblebees and Swifts.

We took a look at an area of the school grounds that the school hopes to develop into a well-being area and then the children drew pictures of what they would like to include both in this area and anything extra they’d like to add to the existing wildlife area, both for them and for wildlife.

Day 3 at Carlton Colville. We went through the plan for the school grounds developments with the children and they got very excited about the idea of a new sensory wildlife garden area. They then created posters to put up around the school to tell get all the other year groups excited about the Wilder Schools project. The children then had a think about the materials we would need to be able to do the developments and what people in the school community might be able to donate to help create the flower beds, invertebrate hotels and sensory garden we would like to make. 

We finished off the session by getting messy with pinecone bird feeders that they then hung up around the wildlife area. As we walked away from the area we could already see birds flying in to investigate the goodies we had put up. 

We had our second twilight session with teachers from across the school to help build their confidence with taking lessons outside. The school asked to focus on the science curriculum so we went through the main topics that are covered such as plants, animals, habitats, seasonal changes etc. and how you could incorporate outdoor learning into that. We also looked at how you can take general concepts or activities and adapt them for different year groups. 

The teachers got really involved with all the activities and enjoyed getting stuck into invertebrate hunting and were very proud when they ticketed off all the leaves on leaf bingo! 

We had a slightly different session this time as it was the King's Coronation weekend! We started by looking at the different animals with King in their name. The children then made leaf crowns form all the amazing different types of leaves they could find in their wildlife area. We then explored the different ways in which King Charles has helped to fight climate change either in his personal life or on a bigger scale such as being a key figurehead at the COP26. The children took inspiration from this and came up with ideas that they would do in their lives or encourage others to do to be more environmentally friendly. 

To mark the day we planted a rose in their garden that the gardening group would look after and watch grow over the coming weeks. 

We had our final twilight teacher training session. We started by giving feedback of any outdoor learning sessions delivered and it was mostly positive with the teachers explaining how the children used the wildlife area really well and enjoyed seeing how the area had changed over the different seasons. 

We then went on to do some geography activities that work well in an outdoor environment such as using a compass, mapping skills and looking at natural vs. man-made and living vs. non-living. Everyone agreed the geography is a great topic to bring outside because it makes very information heavy topics more physical and active. The school have recently had swift boxes installed which is really exciting! So we went on to discuss why this is important and talked about priority species in Suffolk or in their local area that they could highlight to the children. It was amazing to be listening to a skylark singing above the school field whilst discussing this, as skylarks are a priority species. 

I also couldn't resist admiring the beautiful wildflowers that have grown up since the last time I visited and watching solitary bees visiting the various insect hotels in the wildlife area. 

We had our last Wilder Schools day with Year 3!

The children designed their own mini wildlife areas and created them out of natural materials they could find. There were some incredible results, they all really focused and enjoyed this activity. Some of the stand out creative features were an outdoor classroom created from sticks and leaves for the roof, a circle of stones filled with cornflower petals to be a pond and seed pods became seating areas. We then did a bug hunt to see what different species we could find now that the grass has grown taller and the wildflowers have bloomed. There was an amazing array of species including a few thick-legged flower beetles which the children found fascinating, Roesel's bush crickets and even a red-tailed bumblebee nest in a disused mouse hole. we then redid the nature connection survey they first did at the start of their Wilder Schools journey and it seemed as if most of the year were very passionate about nature and being able to spend time outside! 

It has been wonderful working with Year 3 this year and there are plans to develop other areas of the schools grounds next year.