The morning saw Fairhaven's Oak Class (Years 5 and 6) taking part in a range of nature-based activities to help improve their local community, following on from their previous hard work helping nature outside their school grounds as part of the Wilder Schools project.

The children split into groups, with one group putting on their gloves to take on the challenge of litter picking around the local area. They cleared away lots of rubbish, including bottles, plastic scraps and tin foil.

Meanwhile, the second group got busy clearing an area of ground outside the village hall to get it looking its best, doing some weeding and trimming plants. They even had time to paint a bench to give it a fresh new look!

Finally, the third group were busy raking the ground of their wildlife garden, to prepare for planting wildflowers and sensory plants in the wellbeing corner.

The groups then joined together to take a trip across the road to the beautiful Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden. Their mission was to find inspiration for some artwork that they would be creating, which will then be displayed in the Water Garden's cafe for visitors to enjoy. The group had a brilliant time exploring, as they had a go at leaf stamping, took lots of photos and fed some ducks!

At lunchtime, we visited the Nature Ninjas. This dedicated group of children have been meeting on Fridays, with teaching assistant Mrs Seaman leading the Ninja volunteers in helping nature in their school grounds. They were delighted to show us the space at the front of their school that they have been working on.

The children have been incredibly busy weeding, planting pollinator friendly plants, and painting wildlife-themed rocks to decorate the area. They showed off their beautiful range of rocks, which were painted to look like local wildlife. They had thought of everything, from butterflies and bees, to frogs and hedgehogs.

"When I first undertook the task of Nature Ninjas, I was thinking, 'it’ll just be for a small group, we'll just do a few little bits in the garden'. And it's amazing what we have actually achieved in three years with different students," Mrs Seaman said.

"The first year our main achievement was doing the wellbeing corner for the wildlife garden. That was really important to them," she added, revealing that the group had loved making bird feeders, going on nature walks and doing litter picks since joining the club.

"I'm really proud of everyone who's had a go at being a Ninja. I think a lot of children, if you speak to them, they all loved doing it," she said, adding that "their enthusiasm for the love of nature" has blossomed.

"They're always really excited to come every Friday," she said. "They feel a sense of pride and I'm proud of them as well for achieving it."

Fairhaven's headteacher, Mrs Lake, has been delighted to see the school's children being "very in tune and engaged" with the Wilder Schools project, saying that their "positivity and focus has remained over the last three years".

"Our area outside the front, I want to continue to develop that," she said. "We've got some ideas for how we can create a little wildflower meadow out there.

"The legacy is not necessarily just to move on from the project, but to consolidate where we are and also to make sure that we're looking after the things that we've established over these three years. And also to keep our commitment to taking the children outside to learn."

The children made it clear that being part of Wilder Schools has had a huge impact on them, with one student saying that they feel proud to have "chosen to do a tiny part for our world".

"It kind of spreads the word to do what you can to save our planet," another said, while another Nature Ninja said, "We are doing an extra percent to help our planet survive".

Norfolk Wildlife Trust is very proud of all the hard work done by the children at Fairhaven Primary School, as well as by the students at all our other Wilder Schools!

Find out more about our Wilder Schools project here.