Wilder School - Dell Primary

Our first session with Year 5 at Dell Primary! 

First of all we introduced the project to the children to get them excited about how they are going to help nature in their school and spend more time learning outside. Next we completed the Nature Connection Index survey to gauge how the children felt about spending time in nature. Then we headed out to start surveying the school grounds to see what features they already have that benefits nature and help us identify what we'd like to add. The school already has a large number of trees and hedges, bird feeders and an established Forest School area and allotment area that frequently gets used by the Early Years classes but not so much by the other year groups. They also have a pond area but sadly this has been neglected over the past few years so we identified this was a key area for improvement. 

This was a surprise snow day but luckily everything we had planned was inside!

We could now use the information we gathered from the first visit to put together a plan of what improvements we wanted to make to the school grounds over the course of the project. The children decided the pond area should be a focus, they wanted to add more areas more invertebrates which could be a big bug hotel plus some log pile areas and areas of long grass which they could add wildflowers to for pollinators. Previously there was wildflower areas in the school field but sadly they were cut during the summer holidays so the children thought some signs would be a good way to stop this from happening. 

Now that we had a bit of a plan we created posters to put up around the school to tell the rest of the children about the Wilder Schools project and to ask any staff or parents for donations of materials such as pallets, old plant pots and bricks, pinecones, flower seeds etc. as you'd be surprised what people have to offer! 

Today's session was all about birds and what we could do to help them. First we did a trail so the children could learn more about different species of birds and the types of nests they make. Once they had learnt about real bird species they got creative with inventing their own bird species and making a picture of them from natural materials. It was wonderful to see how involved everyone got and how imaginative they could be with just leaves and sticks at their disposal. 

There are already various bird feeders and a few nest boxes around the school so we made sure the bird feeders were full and discussed whether we wanted to add any more nest boxes but decided that it wasn't a priority at the moment as there were already some. 

This was our first big action day, we built our bug hotel! We used unwanted pallets the create the structure then filled it with sticks, pieces of bark and pinecones. As the children were building it the firsts guests were already checking in. We had hoverflies, ants, spiders and snails all having a look at their new home. We also made log piles inside the Forest School area to create more habitats for invertebrates. 

Next was the wildflowers. We scattered seeds along the border of the Forest School area and are the new bug hotel to create a richer habitat for pollinators. The children also made a wildflower seed bomb each as an action for nature in their own gardens. 

This time we tackled the pond! As previously mentioned Dell Primary has a nice sized pond area but it has just been forgotten about because of the busy school life. There are a lot of overgrown trees around the pond all dropping their leaves into the water, lots of weeds in the pond making it hard to see any water at all and then litter strewn around the area. The children got stuck in with litter pickers to remove the footballs and tennis balls that had found their way into the pond and then continued to litter pick around the rest of the school field. The they learnt how to use loppers to remove a large amount of the overhanding trees and branches to allow more light to reach the pond. They really enjoyed doing this as a lot of them had never used tools before and they felt as if they were really making a difference. Some of the cut off branches were used to add to our bug hotel and the rest we will leave until the leaves had dropped off and they can be used for more log piles or they would be good as den building sticks! 

The rain started getting heavier so we headed inside where we started to plan their fundraising event. As part of the project we encourage the schools to have an event to raise money for any resources we will need to make our school grounds improvements or to buy equipment to help with outdoor learning. The overriding winner was a cake sale so the children created posters to tell the rest of the school and parents about what we are raising money for.