Green Flag Application

We have submitted our application for our 5th Green Flag Award. Fingers are crossed! 

Reverse Advent

The Eco Committee has been quite amazed by the terrific response to the reverse advent appeal. Toys, food and donations of toiletries have been pouring in and in just over a week a trolley has been filled with donations and boxes of more donations have been added. A collection by the food bank will be arranged and it is hoped we can raise enough items to send another trolley full or more to this deserving cause. 

Thank you so much to everyone who had contributed so far. Your donations are greatly appreciated! 

Kirkwood Avenue Litter Pick

The John Muir Group Cartier out a litter pick as they headed to the canal today. They collected an impressive 7kg of rubbish and were thanked by residents of the street who came to speak to the children. Most of the litter was plastic packaging and tin cans. The children noticed the how the appearance of the street improved after they had cleared one pavement and this spurred them on to tackle the other pavement on their return to school. 

At the canal they scattered some bird seed at the spot where the otter was caught by their camera trap and they also enjoyed skimming ice on the frozen canal. 

P4 travel survey

P4 carried out a Travel to School survey in class when they got a workshop about idling car engines near school and air quality from WDC.
Here is their poster showing how they travel to school. The walkers got 'green' and those who travelled by car  were 'red' so to visually highlight sustainable travel.

Camera trap project continued...

After a busy and successful live film shoot at the log circle, it was only fair to put the fire pit to good use and crack open the marshmallows...time to give the cast and crew a treat for working so well together.

Camera Trap Project

Pupils are taking part in a camera trap project run by SNH.  They set the camera up along at the canal and Strauss Avenue and leave it for a couple of nights and then it is retrieved and the footage is examined. Lots of creatures of different shapes and sizes have been spotted. Here is a little taster below.
Now all that the children have to do is create and edit a film using their footage which demonstrates their learning about the wildlife they have observed from the camera.

Upstream Battle Conference

Rebecca and Kiera were chosen from the Eco Committee oto be our two representatives at WDC's Upstream Battle Conference on November 5th. They went along to the town hall with Mrs Park and saw some of the work other schools had done and took part in workshops arranged by WDC.

Both members of the Eco Committee were keen to share their new knowledge on return to school.

Good News and Some Bad News

Good news: our Eco Committee has met and formed a plan to combat the increase of litter. More details to follow once the plan is in action. The committee are full of excellent and practical ideas and are keen to make out school a cleaner place.

The bad news is that the poly tunnel has had more unwanted “attention” over the October break. Soil has been thrown about the interior which has been upsetting for the children to discover as Mr Hay has kept the inside pristine since he has been helping us out. We hope to tidy it up soon.

This is what we discovered this week. The children are really upset to see their polytunnel being attacked so often and they have also found that their bug hotel has been vandalised too. They found it hard to understand why vandals are targeting their school and wrecking the places which bring joy to young children. 

Biodiversity

A toad was spotted and observed closely by curious members of P2 today. This large amphibian was released safely after being christened “Berrybum”!

Many worms were dug up in attempt to give the toad a snack but by the time they’d been unearthed Berrybum had toddled off.  

Primary 2 and Primary 1 Forest School

Wednesday means one thing for me:Forest School!

Primary 2 have their session in the morning and Primary 1 come out to the woods in the afternoon.

This week both classes started with a scavenger hunt which was to let me see who would persevere with a tricky task; e.g. finding something blue growing in the woods and also to see how well out meeting cry worked.

After they shared their findings, both classes chose to build dens or do some digging in the mud (apologies for the grubby nails!)  

Some of P2 got to help cut down a tree (coppicing) and then sawed tree cookies from the freshly felled timber! The children were aware of how sharp the saw was and all took great care to stay safe when working with it. The rest of P2 will get the chance to try using a saw next week.

John Muir wildflower garden

This has been blooming over the summer break and it was such a delight to discover upon the return to school. Isn't this just glorious? Well done to the last year's P6 John Muir group who cleared this overgrown flowerbed of weeds and put new top soil in before scattering this colourful selection of wildflowers.

The Magic Door and the Baby Dragon! 🐲

Primary 1 went looking for some inspiration for their story writing in our wonderful outdoor space and boy did they find it! First of all they found a magic door which made them wonder about the infinite possibilities of who/what lived behind it.

THEN theyfound a baby dragon!!! 

(Thankfully it wasn't mature enough to breathe fire.)

🐉 

Buttercups, Tadpoles, Dragonflies and Divers-all in a John Muir Session!

The members of the Wednesday group are working on creating a wildflower meadow along the canal bank by the Whitecrook bridge to support the pollinators there. Today they carried out another bug survey to compare the results from a cool cloudy day to the warm and bright weather we enjoyed today. We saw dragonflies, bees, flies, butterflies and may more flying insects.


The group delivered information leaflets to local resident highlighting the work that they will be  doing to create the wildflower meadow.

Delivering their information leaflets

Enjoying making butterfly chains

Doing the pollinator survey

Counting the number of insects which land  in the 1m square in a two minute period.

The brown grass has been prepared for the wildflower meadow by The Environment Trust.

Pollen!

Tadpoles!

Friendly insects

The rescued motorbike.