Wilder School - Benhall St Mary's Primary

Our first visit to Benhall saw us deliver and assembly to the entire school and explaining the idea of the Wilder Schools project, We tested the children on their local wildlife knowledge and were encouraged to find that they were familiar with species like Barn Owl, Hedgehogs and Swifts but were less familiar with Great Crested Newts and Stag Beetles. They were without a doubt thought, very VERY excited about the idea of exploring and finding out more and making their grounds better for wildlife. 

Today The Children from Benhall Primary visited us at Foxburrow. The children enjoyed exploring the barn garden, identifying herbs and discovering which ones they liked best, making lists for species they would like to plant at school, identifying trees, hunting for inverts and spending the afternoon with some free play in the forest school area.

Under one log we found this beautiful hibernating queen hornet. Look at those stunning autumn colours!

Today we headed back into school to survey their grounds and reflect on how it was different to Foxburrow. We discussed what the children liked about Foxburrow and what elements from their visit they would like to see in their own grounds. We surveyed their grounds to see how good they were for wildlife currently and then drew maps of their outside spaces.

Today saw us head back to Benhall and revisit our maps, making a master plan for the children's vision of a wilder school grounds. We got stuck into action straight away raking an area and scattering with wildflower seed, planting trees and making bird feeders.

Today's session saw us partaking in a bird survey to see what was using the grounds. The children reported having seen a lot of birds visiting the fat ball feeders we made last month but they didn't know what the different birds were so we kicked off with some ID and as they are looking at making tally charts in maths we displayed our findings as a tally. We also put our thinking caps on to come up with some fundraising ideas to help us make our vision and master plan a reality. 

We embraced the rain at Benhall St Mary's primary school on one of our Wilder Schools visits!

Our focus for the day was planning for our fundraising day next week which the class have termed 'Wild Day' where they are inviting the the rest of the school to come in non uniform with a wild theme: wild hair, wild hats, wild clothes, anything wild goes!

They are also planning a bake sale and a wild food tasting where we will be making nettle pesto, dandelion cookies, nettle and mint teas and a lemon balm or cleaver drink.

We are also planning wild activities for the rest of the school to join in with in the hope to raise awareness of and income to fund our plans to make the school grounds wilder!

Go Benhall! Can't wait to see you all going wild next week!!

Welcome to Wild Day at Benhall school!

Wild hair, wild hats, wild clothes and wild food were the order of the day with all pupils invited to come in their wildest dress and donate £1 to our plans to make Benhall's grounds wilder! 🌱💚🐛🐝☀️

Oak class spent the morning foraging for nettles, cleavers, dandelions and foliage to decorate wild crowns. Made nettle pesto, dandelion cookies, lemon balm and mint tea, nettle tea and cleaver water for the rest of the school and parents to try at the end of the day.

After lunch we invited each of the other classes to join us in the afternoon for bug hunting, planting wildflower seeds and making willow crowns.

Before ending the day with a wild food tasting stall, call to sign up to 30 days wild and cake sale to raise more money for our master plan!

In total we raised over £100, awesome effort Benhall!! 💪🏼💚👍🏼

We've been  comparing species found in short grass to those in long grass with wildflowers to see if No Mow May is really that important. Our results were a resounding YES! Not only did the number of species we found increase as the length of the grass increased and so did the excitement and noise of the group as their sweep nets filled!

this was great validation based on evidence based research that long grass areas really are important and that's why the Children have put wild areas onto their master plan to make their grounds better for wildlife.

Our last wilder school visit of the term. Our focus today was on making bug hotels using all sorts of materials kindly donated by families of the school.

We upgraded an existing hotel and built a brand new one plus reflected on our favourite aspects of our wilder school story so far. And of course being the hottest day of the year, we cooled off under the hose!

We've been back to Benhall checking in with a new cohort of year threes. The now year 5's that we worked with last year came along to hand down the wilder school baton and share their ideas and master plan. We kicked off with a litter pick and finding out how long it takes different products to decompose, then moved onto making fat balls and willow dream catchers and doing a spot of bird watching rewarded by a red kite fly past!

Next month sees us back at Benhall for a community action day to see some of the bigger elements of our master plan realised namely planting a fedge, digging in stag beetle stacks and creating a quiet story and sitting area. Check back in to see how it all comes along.....

What a perfect spring day for our action day at Benhall as part of our Wilder Schools project! Blue skies and sunshine were the backdrop to our fedge planting, stag beetle stack and mini pond creating. The living willow fedge delineates the play ground and new quiet areas which will be sown with wildflower seed and spring bulbs.

Fantastic to see some of the bigger projects in our master plan taking shape and lovely to have involvement of parents and the wider school community.