Pond Planting

Today Greg Thurlow, countryside management expert came to our school to help us plant out our pond. The pond is an important part of the school grounds sustainable drainage system with swales feeding water to the pond, however it has been looking rather neglected for a while. Greg brought a pick up truck full of native species pond plants and taught us a little about what they all do. Hopefully once established they will help clean the water naturally as well as providing a great habitat for invertibrates and other creatures. 

We now look forward to seeing the pond grow and develop as a great new habitat in our school grounds. Thanks to all who joined in today and of course Greg.

Spring Update

Things have been so busy there has been little time to update this blog! Two weeks ago we went out to our new allotment and planted some seeds many of which are now sprouting. Last week we had a visit from our local MP Edward Garnier who came to formally present year 7 with their free OS maps and see our pupil voice activities, including the Eco Action Team. Thanks must go to Lily, Grace, Thomas and Charlie for their excellent presentation. Mr. Garnier said he would be keen to return in the future to see the progress we have made. On Tuesday The ASDAN award groups started their work on the allotment with one group building a raised herb bed and the other starting to dig in the manure to the beds. Tough work and oh I noticed they managed to tidy the shed as well!

It is now less than two weeks before we have our Eco Schools Green Flag inspection. We are all very excited and have begun to make preparations for the day.

We also have lots of new projects planned. The watering system for the allotment has now arrived and has been handed over to ICT as part of their studies into control systems. In year 9 a Design and Technology personalised learning module will design and build bird and bat boxes for the school grounds. We are also expecting the pond to be planted out any week now and have further plans to create our own wildflower meadow in the school grounds. In the Autmn we hope to create a small tree nursery working with the Earth Restoration Service but more on that later.

Allotment

With the completion of the shed and greenhouse (thanks to some hardworking members of staff!) over the Easter break the allotment is almost ready for action. With the weather turning more and more Spring like (if you ignore the forecast for snow this weekend) the timing couldn’t be better. Eco Club will start back on Friday with a gardening special, so bring your wellies. More photos can be found on the Big Green Grow pages.