Rachel Blew of Stepney Greencoat Primary School writes:
In April 2016, Stepney Greencoat Primary School received a £725 Tower Habitats grant from The Tower Hill Trust to improve the habitat in the school gardens, around the existing pond; and the installation of bat and bird boxes, bird feeders and wildflower plugs.
Year 3 and Nectar Rich Plants
As part of their Science Topic ‘Plants’, Year 3 helped to fill our newly built planting bed and our empty planters with nectar rich plants (left) to encourage bees. This area forms part of the main playground.
Reception Class and the Bird Feeders
The Reception Class had a lot of fun filling the new bird feeders with bird seed and fat balls (left). We have installed a number of bird feeders around the school grounds and enjoy seeing all of the different varieties of birds that come to feed.
The Reception Class also installed a nesting material ‘apple’ for the birds to nest with (see header photo). We tried to get a photo of the birds taking the nesting material (left), but they were too quick!
Installation of Bird and Bat Boxes
We installed a sparrow terrace (below right) and another bird box in the Reception garden which has trees, a pond and a small meadow area. So far we haven’t seen any birds nesting in these boxes but hope that we will see some baby birds this Spring. We also installed some bat boxes (below left). We haven’t seen any bats yet, but we have seen droppings, so we are sure that the bats must be using them!
Wildflower planting
We planted a lot of wild flower plugs, both in the Reception meadow area and around various areas of the school in order to attract butterflies, bees and other insects. The Reception children helped plant their flowers and were excited to watch them grow and watch the butterflies flying around. Our wild flowers were beautiful and we are looking forward to them spreading and blooming this summer.
All photos by Stepney Greencoat Primary School (click photos to enlarge)
