World Book Day

Yesterday, the school celebrated World Book Day in style. Instead of asking pupils to dress up like many other schools across the county, we invited a real life author to our allotment! The children were indulged in the wonderful world of reading the Oakridge way.

Julie Fulton is a renowned creator and writer of children's picture books including Bears Don't Eat Egg Sandwiches and Greedy Mrs MacCready. It would be fair to say that her visit left a lasting impression on all of the children with many feeling incredibly inspired to become authors, writers and publishers.

The morning was split into two sessions - KS1 and KS2. KS1 enjoyed listening to Julie's stories and hearing all about what it means to be a writer. It was lovely to see them so engaged and inspired by what Julie was saying.

They then acted out the story of the Enormous Potato, narrated by a year 2. It was rather apt after planting their first potatoes the previous week. It brought a smile to everyone's faces.

The Enormous Potato reads much like the story of the Enormous Turnip, where the mouse pulled the cat and the cat pulled the dog and the dog pulled the son and the son pulled the wife and the wife pulled the farmer and so on! It was super to see reading brought to life in such a hands on way.

Class 1’s session finished with a craft activity that was based on Julie’s story, “Bears Don’t Eat Egg Sandwiches.” They designed their own plates of disgusting food and food they liked.

KS2's topic was poems, in particular haikus, which consist of just three lines that use a simple 5-7-5 syllable structure. Julie asked the children to have a go at writing one, using things they might find at an allotment as their inspiration.

The children have since taken everything they learned that morning back to the classroom. This week KS1 have been making egg sandwiches and writing story boards to construct stories from. KS2 have emailed their poems off to Julie to include on her website.

The school is extremely grateful to Julie for coming to visit. Staff and parents felt the activity was enormously beneficial. It gave learning context and how wonderful for the children to meet a real life author. The inspiration and motivation in the children has been clear to see this week, with parents coming into school saying how their little ones want to become writers and that they are busy making their own books at home.

The school hopes to invite Julie back again in the Summer for more story telling adventures on the allotment. Thank you World Book Day.

Gardening Club #5 Book Worms

Today the children enjoyed a World Book Week themed gardening club with local worm and soil expert, Fred Miller, who works for local community group, Down To Earth Stroud. It’s a great network of people who have been incredibly supportive of our school’s new allotment adventure.

Fred came on board to help install the children’s new wormery and provide guidance about how to use it as well as give insight and raise awareness about the importance of our wiggly friends.

The session began with a talk about worms, the roles they play and how to go about finding them. Very quickly, a dozen or so children were enthusiastically digging up the soil to find the biggest and most wriggliest of them all!

Who knew there were so many different varieties? The children found compost worms, brandling worms, green worms, red earth worms, worms with a saddle, worms with yellow rings and rosy tipped worms. There was much excitement. It always gives so much joy to see children outside, getting their hands dirty and really appreciating the natural world and everything it has to offer.

Attention soon turned towards the school’s new wormery and Fred gave an incredibly useful workshop about how to set it up and look after it.

The children helped gather organic matter and carefully separated the banana skins and apple cores from the citrus fruits, (worms don’t like the acidic flavour of oranges.)

The session ended on a real high with a spot of worm racing, a suggestion made by one of the parent volunteers. It went down extremely well. Those children who had been squeamish about handling the worms were soon picking them up and cuddling them as if they were cute fluffy bunnies! Great to see so much love for these fab little beasts.

Worm racing turned out to be captivating , edge of your seat entertainment!! The objective was to see which worm could get it’s whole body out of the circle first. Wonderful to hear the children screaming words of encouragement - the worms were true professionals and weren’t at all phased by the pressure!

As with most competitions, it was a close race and although there was no photo finish, there was clearly some discrepancy over the winner!

The session ended with a few worm facts, which the children read out helped by a worm puppet sock! A thoroughly entertaining, educational and enthralling gardening club. Heaps was learned and loads of worms were found. Knowledge has been passed on from one generation to the next. A big thank you to Fred for giving up his free time to come and talk to the children and share his enthusiasm.

David Drew MP

On Monday the children were very excited to welcome David Drew to the allotment. David is the shadow minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Our new project was of great interest to him!

After briefly meeting with class 2 for their own form of Question Time, David planted some seed potatoes with class 1, which had been chitting on the windowsill in their classroom for the last few weeks. It was fantastic to see the first vegetables going into the ground!

David thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the children, he was very impressed with their energy and enthusiasm.

“It was lovely to start my week in the spring sunshine with these young environmentalists. I learnt a lot about their plans for their allotment and am inspired by their ‘seed saving’ initiative, and the whole allotment project.”
— David Drew, MP

It was an absolutely beautiful morning to be on the allotment. After planting, Mrs Hayes asked the children to form a circle where they had a discussion about life cycles, the function of plants and the jobs they do. It was wonderfully idyllic.

After unearthing multiple worms, it seemed very appropriate to sing a little song about these magical mini beasts. The children joined in with the actions before skipping back down the village lane to school.

BBC Radio Gloucestershire

BBC Radio Gloucestershire visited the allotment last week to find out more about the project, the inspiration behind it and how it has brought the community together. The piece will be aired next Sunday morning on their farming and gardening program.

The recording was a real success. Half a dozen children walked up to the site with their brilliant TA, Mrs Chapman, and were met by Alan White, a local village resident who kindly donated £500 to the allotment fund. The photograph below was taken by one of the children.

The children were asked lots of different questions about how they have been involved in the project, what jobs they have enjoyed doing and what their favourite things are. They talked a lot about building the bird hides, their love of digging and the rat that was found at gardening club! As a by stander, it was extremely insightful. They all did the school proud.

To help give the interviews some context, the presenter wanted to record lots of different sounds, which included splashing in the pond…

…throwing stones in a wheelbarrow…

…and digging over soil.

Despite the rather foggy conditions, it was clear to see just how much the children get from the allotment. Projects such as this enhance their ‘Super Skills’; including participation, teamwork, perseverance, empathy, resilience, inclusion and creativity. The school places a big emphasis on these skill sets so it’s great to get the local radio coverage as it really helps champion everything the school is trying to achieve.

RSPB Big School Bird Watch

Last Wednesday and Thursday the whole school took part in the RSPB Big School Bird Watch. All the children from both classes enjoyed an hour at the allotment, either tucked in the bird hides or nestled under trees. They did a marvellous job collecting vital data for the RSPB to chart the rise and decline in bird populations across the UK.

The bird count supported the fat ball making activity that class 1 had done earlier in the week. The food helped to attract blue tits, robins and blackbirds.

The children enjoyed using the counting sheets to help with the identification of the different birds.

It was great to see the bird hides in use after all the hard work the children had put in to help build them.

Gardening Club #4

Week four of gardening club, and wow, how time flies! It has been amazing to watch all the progress made on the allotment in the space of just a month or two. Thanks to the hard work of parents, teachers and children, the school is beginning to feel the fruits of everyone’s labour.

There were record numbers at club this week - fifteen children in total, and we’re still in the depths of winter. Imagine the numbers come those balmy summer evenings. This is great news and means all the good work the club is doing and all the fun the children are having, is beginning to filter through the school. One of the biggest challenges has been trying to engage all the children, even those who never took an interest in gardening before. The overall goal is to make them aware that they’re only going to get one planet and that actually, it’s their responsibility to look after it. It’s about educating them about stuff that matters.

With so many children, the three parent volunteers broke them down into three smaller groups. The children could choose between planting raspberry canes, making paper pots and sowing seeds. Naturally, there was much cross over so all the children had a go at doing all the jobs.

Once the children settled into their tasks, work was quick. A lovely system soon developed as the paper potters handed their creations over to the seed sowers and the children rotated, taking it in turns. There were some gorgeously mucky fingers too!

There were soon lots of lovely looking trays full of newly sown broad beans. The children helped to label and categorise the different families.

Those children who had helped plant the raspberry canes had also done a smashing job digging holes and preparing the ground.

Excitement soon reached new heights when a dead rat was found in the digging pit. The children have such natural curiosity, it was inevitable they should find the whole thing utterly fascinating. Whilst being careful not to dampen their spirits, a parent volunteer highlighted the risk of disease that rats carry and asked the children not to touch it under any circumstance.

It was suggested that the find could provide a useful biology lesson for the children. Once buried and left to decompose, the skeleton could be unearthed, the bones cleaned and the children given the opportunity to examine the anatomy. Everyone liked this idea and so the children helped to dig the grave.

The rat had quite a send off as parents and pupils gathered round. Afterwards, the hole was covered with paving slabs to prevent other animals digging it up.

Gardening club is having a break for half term but will be back on Wednesday 27th February.

Gardening Club #3

Last week’s gardening club was another great success. Class 1 had come up to the allotment in the afternoon to help finish building the bird hides for the RSPB Big School Birdwatch and after school club finished off the work they started. It was lovely to see the children so committed to their purpose and helping each other, and their teacher, to get the job done.

It was a real group effort. The netting forms a key part of the bird hide because once the frame is covered it means the foliage from the old Christmas trees can be pushed through the holes. The children helped their teacher to cut the netting down to size, which they then tied onto the frame.

The children worked well together to cove the hide in the net.

All that hard work, it’s a good job there’s the odd water butt lying around to have a sit down on! It was kindly donated by a local resident from the village, and the school couldn’t be more grateful. Over the next couple of weeks, parent and children volunteers will help to hook it up to a gutter on the shed so that it can start to collect water.

It’s wonderful to see how happy the allotment makes the school children feel. Perhaps it is a combination of being outside in the fresh air or just a bit of physical labour, but it brings a real smile to all their faces.

The children also helped to dig over the ground where the wildflowers will go.

A good job done. The hides are up and just in time. They look great.