Year 3 enjoyed their first visit to the woods, learning all the risk assessing signs, the rules and began to risk assess for themselves. By the second part of the half-term we had even begun to do maintenance in the woods using tools. With a few sessions left until the Christmas holidays, we have a few more habitats to build and improve ready for the winter.

Year 4 continued to help with maintaining the woods and improving the pathways which were hidden by the autumn leaves. They were concerned that these would develop into a  slipping hazard! In line with their class topic of celebrations, November saw the early celebration of Tree Decorating Day and Soil Day.

Year 5 enjoyed re investigating the rubbish that they had left in the woods in November 2021 and were shocked that all the materials looked the same. All are going to try to improve their recycling at home. Year 5 also had a pupil voice session for future sessions in the woods. Requests included tents for bird watching, more quiet spaces and more craft activities.

We had a Gardening Week in which the whole participated, even parents came to school to help weed and plant areas in the school grounds!

ECO were very busy as we had a Platinum Flag assessment. Thankfully, due to the hard work of everyone in school and on the ECO committee, we retained our platinum flag.

Challenges were sent out at the beginning of the week and involved tasks such as building dens, bird watching and spotting signs of spring. By bird watching at home, we were still able to participate in the RSPB bird count challenge.

We applied for an orchard of fruit trees, which was a project with Natural Resources Wales. We had to provide details of our plans for the future, which we hope will extend our Green Finger Fridays to a Community Garden level allowing use on a regular basis to parents, grandparents etc with or without siblings. This would provide a valuable learning experience and help to enhance the school grounds.

Woodland Wonders sessions continued with lots of maintenance of the area giving pupils the opportunity to use tools safely. This also gave us an opportunity to use our dead wood resources in a productive way by improving log piles and hotels for bugs.

We also focused on a story called The Tin Forest which taught us all about the importance of helping each other and looking after our environment ensuring our rubbish is disposed of correctly.

Spring was also busy in the poly tunnel planning for the next growth season, sorting seeds, gardening resources and planning what we could plant that would fruit at the right time.

Even the shed had its usual new spring paint job, but everything was going to change. By the end of March we were classed as essential workers and only keyworker children came to school.  We became a HWB.