Year 4 pupils from Barnacre Road Primary School planted a strip of wildflowers in their school grounds earlier this year, hoping to attract insects.
Part of the school’s wider program to encourage outdoor learning and promote environmentally friendly actions, the garden is now in full bloom and is already making a difference to the insect population.
Year 4 teacher Sam Mosely said: “Here at Barnacre we do our best to improve the environment as much as possible for the wildlife around us. We have a wooded site near the Spade Mill Reservoir which over the past 10 years has been developed by our students, planting hundreds of trees and bulbs. We maintain the site and then use it for art, orienteering, science lessons, anything we can find that relates to the national curriculum.
“At our school site, we are fortunate to have an incredible piece of land which houses a vegetable garden and a greenhouse, which provides some supplies for our kitchen. We have an orchard with fruit trees and an outdoor classroom. We are also building a pond to attract wildlife, and I am planning with the children a wild grass spiral to attract more bees.
“So when a queen bed became available, my 4th grade class, all 19 dug up the ground…it’s about 40 feet long. It was a chore! The ground was so compact that it took a lot of effort to prepare. Then we planted wildflowers in sections so we would have display for many months to come. We left a few weeks between each section to ensure continuous display. The second batch of seeds we scattered were sent to us by the Tower of London as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. They are rich in beautiful blueberries, purples in keeping with the main color theme of the Jubilee celebrations. They begin just to bloom.
“The flower bed was planted to increase the insect population we have in the schoolyard and my class conducted bee surveys around the land to determine the most populated areas. Our wildflower bed is gaining Hands down. Every day the bed changes as more and more, new, different varieties of flowers bloomed. The kids did an amazing job doing the hard work to prepare the ground. My Playground Duty now includes a check on the bed to see what we have new and what bugs have us.”
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The seven schools and nurseries in the Preston area which have published Ofsted reports…
Our photographer descended to capture images of the spectacular garden, and it still looked glorious, despite a sudden downpour of rain.
Looking ahead, principal Simon Wallis says they have many more ideas in the works, including introducing chickens and bees to the school.
Barnacre also hosts Environment Days every semester, with the next scheduled for next Thursday, as long as the rain stays away this time around!
