Just as spring had almost had arrived, the Earth Restoration Service donated 100 wildflower plugs to St John Bosco RC Primary School in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear in March 2021. Two teachers spent half a school day planting the native wildflowers with 30 children aged 8-9, to create a new 60m2 wildflower meadow in their grounds.
When they applied to join our Flutter Flowers programme, they explained that “our school is a small catholic primary school located in a deprived area. We have just recently started an ECO/gardening club within our school. […] We are trying to encourage more children to take care of the surrounding environment and the world by becoming active in ECO/gardening club.”
With our successful funding bid to the People’s Local Postcode Trust, we happily got the opportunity to make a mini wildflower meadow happen for them! The children were reportedly very excited about the planting and Vicky Miller, Higher Level Teaching Assistant, provided the following feedback about the day:
“The planting of the wildflowers was a huge success, the children enjoyed it immensely. It was lovely to allow the children to take responsibility of planting the wildflowers and for them to enjoy the outdoors. Hopefully the flowers will thrive and provide a beautiful area for the children and wildlife to enjoy. Once again, i would like to relay my huge thanks and the children's thanks for allowing us this great opportunity to plant a wildflower meadow.
We are hoping it will have a great impact on our school grounds and fill a once wasted space with beautiful flowers, in turn attracting wildlife that can add interest and engage children in learning about the natural world. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience – thank you!”
We are excited to see a hillside full of colourful wildflowers in a few years time, when they have established their roots and had a chance to spread their seeds. Hopefully creating a wonderful habitat and source of food for pollinators like butterflies in the future.
