Wilder School - Martlesham Primary Academy

What a fantastic 1st Wilder School Day! Even the torrential rain didn't dampen our spirits! Today we met our Year 4 class 'Chalk Hill Blues' , their teachers and also the Eco Team who will be joining the project and helping us keep the rest of the school informed about Wilder Schools. We started with an introduction to Wilder Schools and why it's important we all help nature, then we started surveying the school grounds to find out what type of habitats they have already, and start to investigate anything we think could be missing. We learnt how to use a 30m tape measure to measure areas in metres, which requires lots of team work! We also found out that there are already some great habitats for nature here, including some lovely big logs, with some amazingly huge worms hiding underneath! 

What a difference some sunshine makes! We spent the whole day outside today, completing our habitat surveys, imagining we were species to see if we could survive in our grounds, and then conducting a big invertebrate hunt, thinking about how important invertebrates are in the food chain. We found bumble bees, ladybirds, spiders, beetles, slugs, lots of insect eggs, small flies, and we also found evidence of other animals nibbling nuts and seeds. We ended the day with a new game, which shows the importance of trees to wildlife. Due to the outstanding Eco-Warrior nature of the Chalk Hill Blues - the game finished early as the woodcutter was unable to get to the trees! Great spirit Chalk Hill Blues! Thank you for teaching us this new ending to the game.

Our mission for today was not only to complete our survey work, not only to analyse our findings, but also to start thinking about ideas of things we can do to help wildlife in our school grounds, taking into consideration the fact that this is the school playground and it gets very busy. The class astounded me - not only with ideas, but with their ability to think through potential problems - for example, we know that wildlife needs safe water to drink, but the class were concerned about the size of a pond, that children may fall in, or disturb the creatures. I can't wait to hear their ideas for solving these problems, when I come in next.

What a great way to start the new year. The year 4's were on a mission today! They learnt so many new skills together with our amazing volunteers. We made a woven willow wall to protect the vegetable garden (tying in nicely with weaving they have done in class), we dug the nettles from the orchard, ready to sow wild flower seeds, we learnt how to whittle so that we can make some bug homes next time, and we used some wonderfully smelly sheep's wool to create nesting material stations for the birds - carding the wool first so it was lovely and fluffy. The class came up with so many ideas for things to create for next month - watch this space!

Our busiest day yet! What an effort this class put in today - they even earnt a class point! Today we made 3 bird boxes, planted 2 fruit trees, designed and built a raised pond - with 2 hibernaculum's underneath for the hedgehogs and frogs (complete with designer entrances) and a rockery on top. They also made many pine cone / sheep's wool bird nesting material stations and whittled away to make bug homes. These will be available to buy at some point soon, to raise money for materials we need to keep on making our playground even more amazing for wildlife. The enthusiasm and effort this week was on fire! Well done Martlesham Primary Academy!

Today was all about Hedgehogs & Tree Appreciation! Following the recent release in the Forest School area, (of a hedgehog found a few months ago by 2 pupils, rescued, healed and fattened up), we wondered how he was doing? We set up a mammal footprint tunnel with dog food (not fish flavour which they can't digest) and black, water based paint mixed with cooking oil. We will leave this out for a few days to see if we can find any hedgehog footprints (or any other footprints). We also learnt about hedgehogs and what they need to live, we made a hedgehog home and thought about what else we could do to help our rescued hedgehog. We then gave our attention to a wonderful tree in the playground which very sadly needs to come down. We thought about all the things we could do with the wood to benefit wildlife....watch this space to find out all the Year 4's AMAZING ideas!

Today we made the most of our tree, to give it a new life, so it may be part of our school grounds and help wildlife even more. We made an enormous stag beetle stack in our wildlife garden! We dug and dug and dug! We then used the whole class to help 'plant' our logs in the hole (which had to be 50cm at least deep). We hope that stag beetles will come and lay their eggs inside the buried wood when it rots - mimicking a rotting tree stump, as this is important to help stag beetles survive in Suffolk. We then made charcoal pencils - using Elder and charcoal from Foxburrow Nature Reserve, AND we finished making the willow fence in the vegetable garden. What a busy day!

Question from Mrs Garrod? Does long grass really make a difference to wildlife? Well, the Year 4's put on their scientist experimental hats and we tested this question for ourselves. We surveyed the school grounds and counted the number of insects found in each type of ground - bare ground, short grass, long grass and 'under things'. We then went to the verges just next to school and counted insect numbers in the long grass. The class undertook this challenge with great patience and diligence.  We found:

Total no of insects found in long grass = 223 (14 types)

Total no of insects found in short grass = 77 (4 types)

We concluded that long grass does make a difference to insect numbers by almost triple. This would help feed birds, bats, mice, reptiles, larger insects, hedgehogs, foxes and all creatures further up the food chain. 

We would love everyone to grow a little bit of their lawn longer, to help all these creature and reverse the decline of insects and wildlife. Can you help us?

What a fantastic day - what a fantastic year! Today we finished off the pond & making our willow fence. We then made a sign to remind other students to look after the pond, made ourselves natural bandanas & Wilder school badges (using wood from our favourite tree that had to come down), to remind ourselves that we are nature champions AND then celebrated in style by making nettle tea!!! This group have come so far in one year, learnt so many practical skills, come up with some incredible solutions to problems we have encountered, learnt how to work as a team using patience, listening and respect for ourselves, each other and the environment and had FUN doing so. Mr Thorpe and Mrs Garrod have been so welcoming and trusting in us, when we have suggested they do do things out of even their comfort zone! We can't thank all the school staff, and Mrs Churchman enough for giving us this opportunity. We are very much looking forward to working with the Year 3's next year and helping Martlesham Primary School to bring more learning out of the classroom and into their lovely school grounds. We love Wilder Schools and the positive impact it has on everyone!