Tree Planting

Today we planted trees during Eco Club. The trees were provided by the Leicestershire free tree scheme and helping us plant were our two local tree wardens and Sam and Andy from Leicestershire Stepping Stones Project. We had great fun digging the holes on Thursday with parents pupils and staff working together to get the job done. Today the trees went in without a hitch and we can look forward to seeing them grow over the coming years.

The trees have been planted to provide the pond with shade and a new habitat for plants and animals. It will need lots of care, so we will get a watering team together next week.

learning how to plant

The tree is planted

The article in the Mercury about this event is here.

Trees

Leicestershire run a free tree scheme and later this week we will benefit from it. On Friday we see the arrival of 6 new trees. These will be planted to the southern side of the pond where they will provide shelter and shade as well as a new habitat in their own right. On Thursday after school we will be digging the holes and the planting is scheduled to take place during Friday lunchtime. We still need pupil, parent and teacher volunteers so its not too late to get involved. More on this on Friday.

Recycling, letter writing and bulb planting

Todays Eco Club was a bit of a mixture. Mr. Notley led some more bulb planting for those who had missed it the first time. Miss Patel took a group round the school to collect the recycled paper from the new recycling bins. There was quite a haul even though not all the bins were emptied! Mr. Batchelor stayed in the classroom to show the latest designs for the allotment area and the group who remained wrote letters to convince our local Councillor that our plans will be good for the local community. We will need our Councillor’s support to apply for funding for the schemes.

Recycling

Today in Eco Club our focus was on recycling, we spent the time making and distributing paper recycling bins. The bins were kindly provided by Leicestershire Council and came in flatpack form. We have now distributed 30 of the recycling bins across the school with most teaching areas and some office areas having one. We must now start using them, lists of what can be recycled are printed on the side of each bin. Our team of 24 volunteer pupils will emty the bins each week. Many thanks to all the pupils who helped today and our two I.T.T. teachers who also helped out. Just click on the thumbnail images to see the larger version. (The reason we were out of uniform today is because of a non uniform day in aid of children in need).

Bulb Planting

Today we planted bulbs in Eco Club at lunchtime. Over 20 pupils and 8 staff went out to finish the job of planting the bulbs across the school grounds. It made a good celebration as last night the school was given an award (Procon Award) for its eco friendly design. Mrs. Webster (our headteacher) was among the staff who came out to help. We had geat fun digging and planting. If you missed this one then there will be lots of other chances in the future.

A Vision For Growing

The setting up of the allotment is progressing. This is a mock up of what it should look like.

Eco Code

A big thank you to all the pupils involved in the Eco Code workshop and of course to Mr. Heath for organising and running it all. The standard of work was amazing. Thanks to you we have some superb and original poetry to publicise our Bushloe Eco Code throughout the school and beyond. The unifying theme will be that of a “message in a bottle”; a message sent around our school and to others. It is also yet another step towards the Eco Schools silver award. At the moment we are hoping to be on track to apply for the green flag by Easter!

Lets Get Started!

This Friday saw the first Eco Club meeting of the term, but this doesn’t mean there hasn’t been loads going on behind the scenes. This year we have several big projects planned. First we aim to develop the new school grounds to be more attractive to all things nature. The pond will develop this year as the water from the naturally drained carpark is cleaned by the plants in the swales and the newly planted pond. Second we will be developing our very own vegetable patch this winter which should be a great resource for the whole school. The third project will be to develop our recycling; starting with increasing the amount of paper we recycle.

On Friday we started signing up members for each of the teams. So far we have about 20 pupils involved in the recycling, veg growing and website updating groups -but there is always room for more! We also planted a tree and had a quick tour around the grounds (for those who had time to join us). We will now be meeting regularly on Fridays, next week we will be planting bulbs in the grounds in preparation for Spring.