For the past two weeks in Eco Club we have been doing a bit of maintenance around the pond, clearing away some of the more invasive plants to allow for a greater variety of plants to grow. We have now made good progress with this work, just in time for the summer holidays.

Two weeks ago the new after school gardening group started, it is now full though those interested can still join a waiting list. Last Tuesday members of the group were able to take home some seedlings they had planted two weeks before and in future we hope to be taking home produce as well. Thanks to the hard work of Eco Club and Gardening Club the allotment looks really good now.

Today we have had a fair trade event arranged by members of the Bushloe School Council and including most of the members of the Eco Action Team. Pupils will be able to visit the stall throughout the day and buy Fair Trade products, it is hoped to improve the awareness of Fair Trade throughout the school.

We are continuing to make progress on the new allotment in our school grounds. We hope to make further progress before the summer holidays in the new gardening club that starts this week. Interested pupils will be able to learn how to grow their own veg and even take some of their produce home. As you can see the allotment has been transformed over the past few weeks due to the efforts of Eco Club and the ASDAN groups.

On Friday to finish off National School Grounds Week and also as part of our year 7 enrichment day we established our meadow area. We spent the morning simulating the effect cows would have on their pasture close mowing the grass and simulating the effect of their hooves by skimming areas of the grass away to reveal patches of bare earth. We carried this process on in Eco Club before sowing 3Kg of wild meadow seed, a mixture of fine grasses and wild flower seed. We learnt all about the benefits of meadowland to wildlife as well as finding out about how to set our meadow up. We can now look forward to seeing the meadow develop over the next couple of years. We also set some of the seed aside to cultivate our own wildflower plug plants. We will plant these into the meadow when they have grown to a good size.

We have been out in the grounds as part of National School Grounds Week. Here are some of our photos from around the pond.

Today in Assembly next weeks theme of Stewardship: National School Grounds Week was introduced. Many thanks to the members of our Action Team who led the presentation to the whole school. Today in Eco Club we had to limit numbers to just 18. This was so we could get some progress on the allotment as well as do some much needed species spotting in our rapidly growing grounds. Those of you who came out to the allotment made huge progress as we planted the peas and more lettuces, finally got the onions in and did a whole load of jobs from weeding to watering. Those of you who went species spotting went looking for all the wildflowers and plants that now grow around the pond and attract a wide range of insects including damselflies and dragonflies. Two newts have also taken up residence in the pond, though they proved elusive today and could not be seen. Photos will follow….

Today 38 of us went outside, some to work on the allotment, some to do composting and some to look at the site for the proposed meadow and outdoor classrooms. Before that we took our newly awarded Green Flag out to take a photo and here it is! All we need now is a flagpole.

We have just heard that we have been awarded our Green Flag! More to follow…

Things are moving on in the allotment as the manure has now been dug in. The first plants have been put out and are already doing well. Unfortunately today is too wet for Eco Club to carry on planting out so that will now wait until next week.

Special thanks must go to the ASDAN group who have made a herb planter and have now planted it out. It looks great!

In Eco Club we went outside to do a number of jobs. First was the dead heading of the bulbs left over from last week, next was some weeding and preparing a bed for the sunflowers. Then there was stone picking in preparation for the wildflower meadow, watering and composting to do. In fact we were so busy that there was no time for any photos to share with you! Next week will be even busier but more on that later.