Lower School Goes Greener

Pond Report

In the autumn term of 2019, the Eco Committee got together to discuss how best to raise money so that we could build a pond. We all agreed that building a pond would be a great way for creating new habitats for wildlife and improving the ecology of the lower school grounds. We spoke to Gus, (a builder) to show him where, what shape and how big we would like the pond to be. The builders started the work before lockdown, and I am curious to see how it looks when we finally get back to school in August. We will be adding plants to ensure it’s an inviting place for insects and other animals. We hope to attract frogs, damselflies, dragonflies and more. Sanna L4

Fundraising and Research

To raise money for our pond we had a big Nessie

Bin collection where everyone brought in clothes that they didn’t want. We raised almost £200 in weight! The Eco Committees had some money already saved from water bottle sales and last year's

Eco Day of Action and, to get the rest of the money, Lower School Grounds The Lower School Eco Team are in the middle of a very exciting new project. We are creating an Outdoor Biodiversity Classroom in our grounds! We are building a pond and marsh area to encourage lots more wildlife to our school. We found an area of unused land to develop and used the money we raised to get help from Earth Calling. We ordered the timber and they built the pond structure. They also used the wood that we kept from a tree that got chopped down to make us some log seating. We are now going to do lots more research and discuss what plants we will have other departments in the school gave us some because they are also going to use the pond. We researched what kind of pond we wanted and how we would like the area to look. We found out about what animals live in and around a pond and looked

at places where we could build one. in the pond. Very soon, we hope to see lots of insects and eventually frogs, toads, tadpoles and maybe even some newts! This is an area for the whole school to use, from Nursery to the Sixth Form. We are looking forward to investigating our pond life and learning lots of new things. We are also going to have a big mural painted on the white walls to brighten up the area and blackboards so that classes can write down things we spot and what we discover. We are making a video documentary of our project. Mollie (Lower School Eco Champion)