Measuring Up…

Today we began the process of gathering data from our school grounds in Eco Club. Mr. Lowe took a number of Eco Clubbers into the grounds to measure trees so we can plot their growth over the coming seasons, it was quite impressive to see the team measuring the height using triangulation! we also used a GPS to measure our height above sea level and location (94m) and a trundle wheel to measure the distance between a focal point tree at the end of the car park and the school entrance (100m). The data team will eventually collect data on all our eco projects for use across the school. The rest of the team were busy planting rescued birch trees around the grounds, fingers crossed that they survive as we are not yet into the planting season.

At the end of the month we hope to welcome the original designer of the grounds David Singleton to one of our eco clubs. We are keen to find out what he makes of the ways in which we use and have added to his designs since our school was rebuilt.

Finally some of you will know that we are hoping to set up a school link with Mrs. Briggs new school Scalloway Junior in the Shetland Isles. I notice that they too are an Eco School and have been awarded a Green Flag, now there is a thought.

Green Flag

Eco Schools Green Flag

Well at last we have our Green Flag on display. The Green Flag symbolises a lot of hard work by a lot of people to make our school a more sustainable place. It is of course only the start of the journey with lots of new challenges and projects ahead. We can only take inspiration from Water Leys Primary school (one of our feeder schools) who became one of a handful of schools to be awarded their fourth flag and had their celebration Assembly last week. Congratulations to them.

Bats about Bats

Today Mr. Pratt led a lunchtime session about bats. We went outside to find some good spots to put bat boxes. Thanks to the 30+ pupils who came along today for all your suggestions, we will meet again soon and hopefully get the bat boxes in place. If you missed todays meeting remember eco club meets on Friday and there will also be a meeting to decide where to put over 20 bird boxes!

National School Grounds Week Starts

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….

Our First Green Flag!

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.

 

Allotment Update

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!

Eco Club Today

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.

An Inspector Calls

Yesterday we were visited by the Eco Schools assessor to see if we had done enough to get a Green Flag award. The Action Team and representatives of the Eco Club met with the assessor as did many of the staff involved with our various Eco Projects. We won’t know the outcome until we get a letter from Eco Schools -but we think she was impressed 😉

This Friday we hope to do a bit more planting in the allotment and finish deadheading the Daffodils after we got rained off last Friday. Next Tuesday there will be a chance to do some serious gardening after school. See Mr. Batchelor for details.

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.

Hedgerow by Pond

Today in Eco Club about fifteen of us went out to look at progress on the allotment. The edges of the beds are just being put in and next week will see topsoil being delivered and hard-standing and paths constructed. Having waited all this time its quite exciting seeing progress being made. We hope to have the allotment up and running soon after the Easter holidays.

We then went to dig up our hedgerow plants that came from the Woodland Trust two weeks ago. We had planted the plants in all together in their wrapper as we did not have time to plant them at first. Today we planted them as an 8 metre hedgerow along the edge of the pond. We look forward to the week after Easter when the pond itself is due to be planted out.

Allotment starts to grow

Our Bushloe Big Green Grow allotment project got under way today as construction on the fence began. Over the coming days we look forward to seeing the raised beds being constructed and the hard standing areas put in. You can check back here over the coming days for further updates and click on the Big Green Grow page to view the plan.

Bushloe Forest

We planted three more trees today in Eco Club, our school grounds will end up as Bushloe Forest if we keep this up! These trees were three Birch trees and they came from Brocks Hill Environment Park tree nursery. We are now looking forward to our free pack of Woodland Trust hedgerow plants due next week, they will go in alongside the pond (with a bit of help from Eco Club of course). We are now ready to apply for our first Green Flag award today. Following a meeting of the Eco Action Team we are sending our application in on Monday. This will mark the first staging post in a jouney that has taken two years so far. The Action Team will be meeting again next Wednesday when we will be joined by Penny from Leicestershire Council and Mrs. Gilroy representing the Governors. We will discuss waste management education with Penny as well as spending some time on the new Action Plan.

Update

Ok, so no posts here for the past couple of weeks but that doesn’t mean nothing has been happening. In fact things have been really busy. In Eco Club we have been thinking about the sorts of species that we are trying to attract to our school grounds and writing “spotters guides” so we will know what we are looking at when we see it. Eco Club have also been very busy with the recycling and composting rotas.

Last week also saw an exciting new development as we planted another 6 trees, this time Oaks, at the back of the school (see above). Each Oak stands at over 2m tall and they have been generously donated to the school. In time these trees will provide shelter to our school as well as creating a diverse and rich habitat.

The same week also saw the fifth meeting of our Eco Action Team. It was a useful meeting at which the new Action Plan was discussed. Future plans include extending recycling and looking at energy use in our building. It was also decided to make our application for our first Eco Schools Green Flag Award, this will be discussed fully at our next (sixth) meeting.

It seems a good time to reflect on our progress so far. After a great start in 2006, last year was a quiet one for Eco Club as we settled into our new building. It was also frustrating for us all to see the destruction of the old Eco Area with the old building and then be able to do so little towards replacing it. We were able to plan though and since September we have made huge progress with more to come over the coming months. So far we have established a paper recycling system and have begun composting while outside we have planted bulbs, twelve trees and several shrubs. We have built birdfeeders and raised the profile of environmental issues across the school. Still to come is our allotment area which is due to be built next month and plans for the new pond to be cleaned out and planted with native species. We are also hoping for funds for nest boxes and to establish an area of wildflower meadowland. Inside the building Staff continue to introduce more plants to “green up” our school while work is being done on an ethical purchasing policy. It is all excellent progress but demands more effort than ever from us all to keep it going. A huge well done to all of you who have been involved in these schemes, we are already seeing the results!

Bird Feeding Array!

The team working on the bird feeder finished their work today and here it is! At well over 2 metres high it should put off the cats, as for the squirrels we’ll have to see. It is now located in the year 6&7 playground. Well done to all involved, we look forward to see what visits.

Bird Watching

This weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Watch, to mark this we have had our own bird watch in the grounds. Unfortunately workmen were out and it was lunchtime meaning that only a few bold crows, doves, pigeons and magpies were around. We used the RSPB’s counting sheet to help us. To encourage more birds into our grounds we have now put 4 coconut feeders up and construction was started of our new bird feeding station (to be finished next week). Why not have a go counting the birds in your garden this weekend or make your own birdfeeders? You can find a link to instructions here. The rest of you spent the time composting and put the full composting caddies into the new composting bins (set up by the kitchens for now). There is now a collection rota and new compost caddie collection site in the year 6/7 playground where you can put your apple cores etc.

Trees, trees and more trees

The tree planting season will soon be over but there is still time left. This week we have had an offer of more free trees from the woodland trust. The trust offer all schools the choice of either hedgerow trees or young saplings plus a seedling pack. We have chosen the hedgerow, details here. Also Over Christmas five Oak saplings were generously given to be planted in the school grounds and will be rather special. Finally we have had a further offer today from Oadby and Wigston and the tree Wardens of some more trees. We had better get our spades ready! This Friday the focus of Eco Club will be the school energy survey. We need lots of volunteers to assess the energy efficiency of our new building.

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.