Success Story!

bledlow ridge school, high wycombe

Bledlow Ridge School in High Wycombe received tree saplings for students to set up their own tree nursery in March 2020. Teacher, Marion Lyon, made this opportunity a focus for an after-school STEM club. She told us about their experience right after the planting day, which was affected slightly by the pandemic.

“When we heard that we had been successful and would be receiving saplings, I chose to use it as a focus for an after-school STEM club. We thought about the best location, measured up, drew plans learnt how to use tools safely and built raised beds in the weeks before.

As the date of arrival was delayed, we were able to launch the tree nursery during British Science Week and got a grant for some measuring equipment that we can use to monitor the trees and weather over the years to come and use in other school science.

We were also able to invite a couple of children, who struggle in school with academic work to help with the planting, which ties them into the success of the project. And with different groups of children in school since Easter, it has been easy to take small groups out to measure the saplings, record changes etc.

Thank you for setting up this initiative”.

In the beginning of 2022, we followed up with Marion to see how the tree nursery had been used for their after-school activities during the past 2 years.

“I've found I could use the nursery in lots of ways - observing change over time, noticing variation between different species, identifying trees in winter and summer, measuring - sometimes with whole class, but often a small group, or a Teaching Assistant taking a group at a time.

One group did their child-led science project observing change over time with the trees as part of the Science Oxford Big Science schools competition and came runners-up in Bucks!

It's also been something we can talk about as a small scale local example response to biodiversity & climate crises.”

We also asked if some of the trees already have been planted elsewhere in the community. As they grow larger and won’t fit in the nursery anymore. Marion told us:

“The oaks and beeches went to a new woodland planting project in another Chiltern village, near Gt Missenden, suggested by Chiltern Rangers who we try to work with regularly. Some year 5 students helped lift the trees. The rowans, hazel and goat willow are going to a church in our nearest town. Here they are planting a native species hedge as part of a plan to create more habitat in their garden.”

You can see some of these photos from the planting event at the church below.

We were lucky to have funding for more trees in this part of the UK this year. This meant that we could support the school with another batch of trees for their nursery. This will keep their great after-school activities going for more students in the years to come. Such a great story!