Wilder Schools - Barratt David Wilson Homes - Sandown School

Our first day of workshops kicked off with a whole school assembly before Year 4 took part in a fun prioritisation workshop, where pupils enjoyed the challenge of discussing which actions for nature were the most important to them as a year group. 

They had some productive conversations about how they might be able to achieve all they wanted within the available time and resources. This session helped them to create a personalised Action Plan to follow throughout the year, before moving into their second workshop – ‘Planning and Mapping for Nature’. In this time, students learnt how to measure their school site and outlined how much space is, and could be, protected for nature. 

Kent Wildlife Trust are working with both Year 4 classes at Sandown, and the children are incredibly enthusiastic about helping wildlife and improving sustainability at their school. We’re looking forward to working with them this year and supporting them on their Wilder Kent Awards journey. 

In April, the children took a deep dive into what they love and appreciate about the natural world. They used this as inspiration and wrote their own ‘Manifestos for Wildlife’ where they made promises to protect and restore wildlife in their own way, either at school or at home. 

In our second workshop of the day, Bella read ‘the Bison and the Butterfly’ storybook to the children, explaining about our Wilder Blean Project with a focus on habitat connectivity. The children gained a good understanding of why habitat fragmentation threatens wildlife by playing our habitats game and showed empathy for species that might be at risk from habitat loss. 

Day 3 took place at the end of May and began with another whole-school assembly that focused on the ways we can help nature at home. The school learnt about swifts, hedgehogs and how to support wildlife from a windowsill, balcony, or garden. 

Year 4 were introduced to the term ‘eco-anxiety’ and gained a better understanding of why we might feel anxious, sad or angry when we hear about environmental degradation. They learnt that it’s normal to feel this way when thinking about these difficult topics and were taught how to recognise and cope with these feelings through fun activities, community connection and individual hobbies. 

Following this, Year 4 learnt about climate change and the greenhouse effect through a fun and active dodgeball game. Learning more about the topic seemed to further strengthen their enthusiasm and passion for protecting wildlife and the environment. 

To finish off the day’s activities the children learnt about water pollution, including a demonstration of how long it takes for natural and man-made materials to break down in water. As a nice bonus, everyone got to plant their own sunflower seed and watch it grow over the next few months!

To celebrate the grand finale of the Wilder Schools programme, Year 4 took part in a ‘BioBlitz’ – a fast-paced wildlife survey of the school site to see how many species we could locate and identify. This helped the children to connect with many native species of plant, bird, and insect, as well as allowing them to see what they’ve learnt at school about lifecycles and habitats ‘in the field’! Some of the species identified includes Hawthorn, Hazel, Field Maple, Dandelion, Woodlouse and a variety of butterflies. 

Thanks to a generous additional donation from Barratt David Wilson homes, we were also able to source recycling bins for every classroom at Sandown, two planters, compost, and a variety of wildlife-friendly species to go in them! 

The second session was a hive of productivity, with the children working really hard to set up and plant the flowerbeds. They did an excellent job, working as a team to plant climbers like honeysuckle and ivy to train along their school fence, as well as two small herb gardens including mint, rosemary, thyme, sage and lavender. 

Keeping the plants watered over the school holidays was a concern, so we created our own ‘ollas’ – an ancient watering system using clay pots as an irrigation system that dates back 2000 years.