March 26 – We can’t believe it’s already March. We have been really busy making sure our school is tidy and litter free and keeping the birds fed. We completed the RSPB Big Bird watch although there wasn’t much about as it was raining – turns out the birds have more sense that Mr B! Our spring bulbs are starting to come up and flower and we have spread the pots around the school. We have also planted some Primroses and scattered some wildflower seeds in the Wildflower patch at the front of the school; we will be doing the same in the other Wild Space by Elves next week.
Nov 25 – It’s a really good time to plant Spring Bulbs, so that’s exactly what we have been doing. We have been planting them at different depths (and all the right way up!) to give a lovely display in the Spring, fingers crossed. The windy weather has meant that there is a lot of rubbish blowing around the playground, so we have also been picking it up, as well as talking to our friends about making sure that we always put it in the bin. We would like to thank FOLs for our ‘termly allowance’ which has helped us buy grass seed, bulbs and these lovely gloves this term, Thank you!
Sept/Oct 25 – Since being elected, Mr B has kept us really busy helping him to tidy up (carefully and not too much!) our Wild Spaces. There is plenty of wildlife using them already and we have found Ruby Tiger Moth (‘Woolly Bears’), Large White Butterfly and Knot Grass Moth caterpillars recently. We have also been helping him to turn our little bit of grass from brown to green. Ali Miles from Purn Landscapes also helped by bringing in a load of soil so the grass seed could be sown. It was soon looking as good as new, except for some yellow strips round the edge – but we have a plan to fix that. We loved helping him rake up the grass cuttings the contractor had left and we used these to feed our ‘Interactive Compost bin’ which is brilliant (thank you Jamie from Howson Homes for helping Mr B to build this). We have also put a compost bin in the playground to put our apple cores and banana skins in.
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- Knot Grass Moth Larva or Caterpillar
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- Large White Moth Larva or Caterpillar
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- ‘Woolly Bear’ – Ruby Tiger Moth Larva or Caterpillar
Eco-Committee 2025 – 2026
Welcome to our new Eco-Committee for this year!
June 25 – another busy month as our gardens burst into life. All the classes have been planting in their new vegetable beds. Mr B has also put out a moth trap for a couple of nights to see how successful our garden is at supporting wildlife. The answer is a resounding ‘very’ as we have recorded over 30 different species of moth including these beauties in the photo below. We have also received plaques from Butterfly Conservation and Somerset Wildlife Trust to show how wildlife friendly our garden is. We continue to work on planting more flowers and making our space as beautiful and as wildlife friendly as possible and also thinking about how pesticides and weed killers can affect it. We designed posters and wrote letters to try and discourage their use. Also below is a report that was written for Butterfly Conservation on our Wild Space Project.
Write up for Butterfly Conservation's Arion magazine
April/May 25 – We have once again been very busy, with Mr Bishop working us hard every week. One team picks litter while the other does different jobs around the school gardens. Thanks to a generous grant from Somerset Gardens Trust, there has been a team of Dads working hard building some planters for all of the classes, so we now have one each! They also built the most amazing compost bin which you can look inside to watch the worms at work. Our Solitary Bee hotels are up and we are pleased to announce we have a clutch of Blue-tit chicks in one of our nest boxes.
February/March 25 – we have been very busy doing jobs around the school every Wednesday with Mr B. We have continued doing our weekly litter pick to keep our school looking tidy. Recently we put out our pots of daffodils which are now coming into bloom and look beautiful. We also planted some other plants in our pots which are also starting to grow and flower. The latest job was to sprinkle some more wildflower seeds out the front of manor Hall and repair some damage made by the recent scaffolding tower that was used to fix the roof.
January 25 – Another busy month despite the wet and windy weather. Thanks to FOLs we now have some litter pickers and we have bee putting them to good use clearing up all the wind blown rubbish. We have also put together a Collective Worship and presented it to the whole school. Our main theme was to tell them about the RSPB Big Garden Bird watch and encourage them to take part. We also asked them to be more careful with their rubbish to keep our lovely school looking it’s best.
December 24 – It really is Christmas now and the presents keep on coming. Thank you so much FOLS for the feeders, bird boxes and solitary bee houses they really do put the finishing touch to our Wild Space. We have already seen Blue Tits, Great Tits and Coal Tits using our feeder, whilst a very friendly Robin is keeping an eye out for anything spilt by the others! Mr B and Mr Flavin have also been very busy putting in hedges both in our Wild Space and also in the Pre-school – we think they are going to look fabulous in the Spring! We have also been busy planting the last of the Wild flowers given to us by Lonsdale Plant Nursery, Chedzoy out the front of the Manor Hall and in the Sensory Garden. Time for a well earned break – Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all from the Eco Committee.
November 24 – Christmas again! This time were were given a great big bag of seeds by our friends at Sanders Garden Centre. We also got to work planting, our first job was to plant some bulbs – Bluebells, Snowdrops, Snake’s-head Fritillaries and Daffodils have all been hidden in the ground, we can’t wait for them to reappear! We also entrusted Elves with planting the winter veg in their planter, as you can see, they did a fantastic job as you. We were also delighted to see a single Poppy in our Wildflower patch that fittingly appeared on Remembrance Sunday!
October 24 – It was just like Christmas today as the newly elected Eco Committee unloaded Mr B’s Car after he had visited Lonsdale Plant Nursery, Chedzoy who have very generously donated Winter Veg Plug Plants and Wildflowers for us to plant around the school. We can’t wait to get started!
August 24 – As Everybody takes a well earned Summer break – our Wild Space starts to flourish. Check out our progress at Wild Spaces and then start yours today! We are extremely grateful to Butterfly Conservation for supporting this project.
12 June 24 – Our new bench has arrived, but needs to be built – Who you gonna call? – Dad’s Army!
6-7 June 24 – Busy couple of days – On Thursday morning Ali Miles and Mr Bishop prepared a base for our new bench, kindly bought for us by FOLS. In the afternoon all the children from Phoenix, Elves and Unicorns set about sowing seeds and planting wild flowers. On Friday Griffins built a Hibernaculum and then planted more Wildflowers.
29 May 24 – We now needed some earth – lots of earth – Dad’s Army and Ali are called on once again to do the hard work.
24 May 24 – Time to build a Bug Hotel – Phoenix Class are on it! Great Job!
17 May 24 – We then needed a path building to make sure access was safe for everyone. We asked Ali Miles, from Purn Landscapes to help us build one – he was happy to do so – it looks great, thank you Ali.
8 May 24 – The first job was to clear the area, we recruited the help of some parents – ‘Dad’s Army’ were superb and got stuck in to make short work of it.
* * School Improvements * *
Our Eco school committee decided that this was an area of the school that would be most suitable to develop as a Wild Space!
They set to task under the guidance of Mr Bishop and Butterfly Conservation to regenerate the area.
Introducing the Eco Committee for 2023-24
