Day 1

School #2: St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester

Another gentle tootle across town in the afternoon took me to St Mary's Catholic First School in Dorchester. St Mary's are a caring school with a family feel about them, and another one of Dorchester's Green Flag Eco-Schools.
This afternoon I was to visit the Eco-Committee (the organisers!) and the Eco-Club (the do-ers!) and their wonderful leader Mrs Gannon.

The willow dome was full of insect life!

Now, I've met a lot of wildlife enthusiasts in my life, but I never came across a more enthusiastic and knowledgeable bunch of children when it comes to all things wild! Despite being a 'town' school surrounded by housing and adjoining the train track on one side, St Mary's have managed to attract a whole load of wildlife to their school grounds. Some of the features introduced include:

• an unmown bank to encourage wildflowers
• log circle for Forest Schools (and bug hunting!)
• young trees
• a hedgehog box
• providing fat balls for the birds
• numerous bug hotels!

(Rumour has it plans are afoot for a school pond...watch this space!)

Naturally, Reg sniffed out this hedgehog hotel which he thought would make a very comfy home. The school had a hedgehog visitor last year, proving all their minibeast habitats have attracted plenty of slugs and worms to feed a hungry hedgehog!

🐛🐚🐛🐜🐛🐚🐛

Eco Box contents

Needless to say, these children are expert wildlife spotters! So much so in fact that one of the jobs of the Eco-Club is to help other children to hunt for creepy crawlies at playtime. Their brilliant invention is this 'Eco Box'. At selected breaktimes an Eco-Club member collects it from the office and brings it outside for the other children. It contains all the stuff an expert bug hunter would need;

• magnifying pots
• ID sheets for minibeasts, birds and plants
• a card to remind bug hunters to wash their hands when they get back to the classroom. Endlessly practical!

My favourite thing though were the green hats! They identify the Eco-Club children as 'Wildlife Wardens' for that breaktime, and they love wearing them!

All this nature makes it into lesson time as well, with some classes took part in the RSPB Big School's Birdwatch, and others doing the Pod's What's Under Your Feet survey later this year to contribute to some important citizen science!

After blowing my mind with their wildlife knowledge, the children learned a bit about butterflies with yours truly. 70% of butterfly species in the UK are in decline due to a combination of habitat loss, pesticide use and the changing climate.

We learned about the importance of nectar-rich meadows for providing butterfly food, and played with these home-made butterflies and meadow. The butterflies are made from old magazine pages.....thank goodness I kept all those old issues of Plumbing & Heating News :)

There are some alarming statistics out there about the huge numbers of children that don't have opportunities to go outside and explore what's around them. Fortunately 'nature deficit disorder' isn't something that children experience at St Mary's. The opposite - children explore, and when they do, they love it.


Until tomorrow.....