Another wet day that was made much more tolerable by the fantastic students at St Michael’s Primary School.  The aim of our day was to learn all about the creatures that may live on site and go searching for what could be found.  Despite the sudden and frequent downpours, the students bravely investigated the wildlife garden and other areas of the  grounds and amazingly, some great creatures were found, including a bush cricket and a ladybird larvae – well spotted!   After drying off, the children were challenged to design an insect of their own and think about all aspects of its life.  I have never heard so many brilliant ideas, showing how much they had learned during the day and how incredibly creative the children could be.  Thanks for all the fun, I thoroughly enjoyed working with you and hope that the ideas you have for the garden take off (and that we get the weather to do it!)  See you again.   Paul

We had a great day today exploring wildlife at Pinhoe Primary School. We braved the rain to go on a bug hunt and to look at the great collection of wildlife in the in the pond and wildlife garden area. When the rain got a bit too heavy we headed inside to do some invertebrate arts and crafts where Year 3 got creative and designed some very exciting invertebrates to make out of things that we throw away. When the sun finally came out we had a brilliant afternoon bug hunt and bird watching session as the sun encouraged many of the flying invertebrates out for us to see! Thanks for a great day and keep up the excellent work in the wildlife areas in your school!  Alice

A huge congratulations to all the organisers of the annual Kingfisher Awards which celebrated last night with their picnic and judging of the children’s projects.  As ever, the standard of the entries was incredible, including 3D models of creatures, orchards, games and puzzles as well as fully handed knitted model of a farm!  Amazing.  The judging was so difficult with three schools demonstrating such detailed knowledge and creativity that it took plenty of time to come to a decision.  In the end, the winners were Chagford Primary School, narrowly beating Broadclyst (pictured) with Redhills Community Primary School a very close third.

I want to congratulate all the staff and students involved as there was such a lot of good learning about wildlife and the environment.  It is really encouraging to see so much effort going into developing an awareness of the value of nature in these young people and I am really pleased to be associated with such an excellent event.  Thanks again for the invitation, looking forward to next year already!

Paul

What a close run competition!! Today, Tammy Falloon (St Bridget Nurseries) and I visited seven schools in Exeter to judge the salvage garden competition for 2012.  We knew that the teachers and students had been working hard but could not believe the quality of the gardens that they produced.  It came down to two gardens in the end and Stoke Hill Infants and Nursery just beat the others by their excellent knowledge of the plants they had chosen and the fantastic ideas they had to support birds – including the cast iron frying pan that is now a bird bath!!  Clyst Heath Nursery and Community Primary school had also put in huge amounts of effort to create a garden that was based on a journey to school.  Their garden was so close to winning that Tammy suggested a second place prize of some plants from her nursery so well done!

Praise must also go to St Michael’s Primary School and Countess Wear who were both highly commended for their gardens alongside Pinhoe, Topsham and Whipton Barton Infants who had all used their imagination and creativity to take junk and make it beautiful.  We had a great time visting you all and your enthusiasm made it so difficult to choose!

Thanks to all the staff and students involved – I will be sending certificates and some picture with feedback to each of you soon.  Keep up the excellent work.

Paul