Shrewsbury Primary School continue to go green with tree plant and launch of forest School
As part of ‘National Tree Week’ a Shrewsbury primary school planted five trees in its grounds to accompany its newly developed forest school.
Coleham Primary School is continuing its journey towards a more sustainable future and helping to educate the children on ways they can help fight climate change.
The five trees, which were donated by parent Brendan Tuer, were planted in the school grounds.
Mr Tuer is a member of the Belle Vue Tree Planting Group and his Year 6 daughter Erin attends the school and is on the Eco Council.
He said: “If we all planted one tree, we would all be making a positive step towards doing our bit to fight climate change. I have paid for and donated the trees because it’s important that the children continue to learn about what they can do and we can do as a community.
“The Belle Vue Tree Planting Group have worked alongside Belle Vue Councillor Kate Halliday, Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Shropshire Council and continue to work towards getting more trees planted in the local area.”
During the summer the school engaged a local carpentry firm to develop new zones in the school grounds to develop a forest school.
This major redevelopment in the school grounds now enables the children to partake in woodwork, cooking on open fires, building shelters, whittling and learning other skills, all while being in the outdoors to help improve their physical and mental wellbeing.
The new areas include a woodwork zone, mud kitchen, den building area, tree decks amongst the trees and a large canopy to enable forest school to take place in all weathers.
The tree decks give children opportunities to explore and build pulley systems and observe nature from up high. The school also has a cooking zone and resources to go into each new area.
Forest School after school clubs have been established and the project has created opportunities for continued professional development for all staff.
The development has been a team effort between a group of parents and PTA members who kindly helped to clear the overgrowth for the den building area.
Miss Saunders, Forest School and Eco Council Leader, said: "Forest school is an inherent part of our school life at Coleham Primary school. It is an approach to learning that aims to re-connect children with their natural world.
“It enlightens their senses, gives them the opportunity to be mindful and encourages skills such as co-operation, perseverance and problem solving. At Coleham, we endeavour to give our children from a young age the opportunity to explore their environment in order to make them love it and crucially, want to help conserve it.
"Forest School is so important for every age group, we hope to develop this further across KS2 over the coming year. The children are absolutely loving the new zones, from lighting fires and cooking popcorn to building shelters and learning how to use tools safely and the children are flourishing in this outdoor independent environment."
