Loddon Junior School

24^th September – Assembly and Meet and Greet

Today was my first visit to Loddon Junior to speak to the whole school about the Wilder School Project and meet the eco-council. It was great to see how excited all the students were about protecting wildlife! 

After the break I also met the eco-council for the very first time. In total we have 30 members who are very keen to improve the biodiversity of their school grounds and learn all about wildlife. To start we went outside and played a name game to introduce ourselves and each member had their own animal name, I was Lauren Ladybird! Then each student made their very own nature journals with sticks that they collected outside! 

1^st October – Eco-council’s Visit to Hickling Broad

At the start of this month, the eco-council came along to spend the day at Hickling Broad to see what different habitats we have and the creatures that live there. We did lots of fun activities like dyke dipping, bird watching and going a walk of the site. The children loved dyke dipping and finding all the tiny invertebrates. Some of the creatures and species we found included the 3-spined Stickleback, Lesser and Greater Water boatmen, and even the see through Phantom Midge Larvae! While bird watching some got to see the Cranes flying past! The children were fascinated with the size of their 2-metre wingspan and how loud their call was. Together we all had a great time and the sun stayed out all day!

15^th October – Habitat and Biodiversity Survey Loddon School Grounds

I visited the eco-council this month for a session all about surveying the habitat and wildlife. Together we want to improve the school grounds for wildlife, but to do that we needed to know what habitats and wildlife currently live at Loddon! To start we explored the grounds looking for a variety of different habitats, the children identified that they have lots of trees, hedgerows, long grass and a meadow area. However, there is room for improvement as we could fix their pond area, add habitats for hedgehogs, or add more flowers for pollinators. This information will help the children to decide what habitats they would like to add to their grounds!

The second part of the session we looked for the creatures that live in the existing habitats. We looked in the long grass and hedgerows and found lots of different creatures such as snails, millipedes, spiders, ladybirds and shield bugs. While we were looking, we saw crows in the trees, blue its fly over and squirrels racing across the grounds! Next year we hope to complete the same survey and see if the habitat improvements will attract even more wildlife to the school grounds. 

26^th November – Habitat Vote and Wild Art 

Today I visited the eco-council on a sunny but chilly November afternoon. Together we voted on what habitat changes we would like to make to the school grounds. Each child had three votes to choose which habitats they wanted to see in their school. I tallied up the results and found the most popular choices included: a pond, a hedgehog home and bird feeders. On my next visit in January, I will reveal to the group that we will be working on these habitat changes for the rest of the year!

After voting on their habitat changes the group gathered natural materials to create an artwork of their dream school grounds. With those materials they created a border out of sticks and filled the area with different materials to represent different habitats and creatures living there. Everyone had a great time getting creative! I’m looking forward to my next visit in the new year to tell them about what we will be working on together!