It was great to get back into our pupil voice groups this week and the Eco Group were raring to go. Our first meeting gave us the opportunity to discuss the kinds of things we would like to do over the next year and we decided who would be our litter pickers for around school.  In our next meeting we will be discussing how to save energy and introducing the school once again to our beloved Eco Bear!

The gardening team got off to a good start on Tuesday in their after school club as they worked their magic in the school wildlife garden. We noticed that over the summer holidays a lot of plants had grown over the footpaths, so we set off tidying those up and cutting back the big branches so people can move around the area safely. Some of the team reassembled the seating area whilst others did a litter pick and picked all fruits that have grown. We found lots of apples and delicious blackberries.

Last week, we were lucky to have a special visitor in our assembly to show us how the keyboard worked and to do some performances on it.  The whole school even got to sing to ‘Green Green Grass’ by George Ezra as it was played on the keyboard.  All KS2 children should now have received a leaflet about keyboard lessons, if you are interested in signing your child up to lessons.  Some KS2 children will also have received a letter about violin lessons too.

Our latest sightings!

Year 2 have been monitoring what goes on in our wildlife garden this week as part of our Hedgehog Heroes project. Despite creating a hedgehog feeding station we don’t seem to be spotting any hedgehogs, but we have had a few other visitors! Can you tell what they are?

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After all the learning we have been doing in school about hedgehogs, we were lucky enough to see a baby hedgehog thanks to Iyla’s mam (Year 1). She came into school on Monday to show us one of the hedgehogs that is being cared for at the local hedgehog sanctuary ‘Hufflehogs’ in Stanley Crook. She explained, because he had become lost from his mother, Henry the baby hedgehog had been taken in by them. We found out that there is a large decline in numbers of hedgehogs and we have to look after hedgehogs.  She gave us some top tips on how we can help, including looking out for hedgehogs before we cut the grass and to never put out slug pellets which they find poisonous.

We are continuing to be hedgehog heroes in school by monitoring their behaviour. We have set up a mammal footprint tunnel alongside our hedgehog feeding station and our camera trap is close by. The Year 2 children will monitor the set-up each morning to see if we have any visiting hedgehogs and investigate who/what is leaving footprints in our tunnel. We will let you know what we find out!

Well done to KS2 for a superb effort at Sports Day.  We were very impressed by the sportsmanship that was seen in some of the teams!  A super day was had by all, especially Yellow Team who won the KS2 Sports Day event.  All points will be added to the house points collected across the year and the House Team winners of the year will be announced later this term.

KS1 had a fantastic morning for their Sports Day today.  A special congratulations to Yellow team who scored the most points!  The points from Sports Day will be added to our House Cup points which will be revealed later this term.

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How to look after hedgehogs

Year 2 have been doing a lot of research on how to look after hedgehogs. They have created posters which are displayed in school to tell people how to care for them in the wild. Please take some time to look at Olivia’s poster which has some top tips on!

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As part of the Hedgehog Hero project that we are involved in, the children have also had to write a letter to parents and carers to inform them on how to look after hedgehogs. We hope you enjoy reading one of our letters and get some useful advice from it.

BD Letter

If you would like any more information about hedgehogs please visit the following website:

https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/leaflets/Hedgehog-Street-top-tips.pdf 

As part of our strive to become hedgehog heroes, Year 2 approached the workers who come into school to cut our grass to ask them if we could put some of our special stickers onto their machinery. The stickers from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society are bright yellow and remind people to check the area for hedgehogs before using the equipment.

We have also been learning how to look after hedgehogs in our gardens. It is important that they keep hydrated and so we have placed little water dishes around the edges of our wildlife garden. Next week we are going to design and make a hedgehog feeding station!

Please don’t think our wildlife garden is messy. There are two sections of it that we are keeping overgrown in order to attract all the different types of creatures. So far we have seen bees, moths, beetles, slugs, rabbit and many more living things enjoying the area.