Wildflower meadow at Ashperton Primary Academy offers benefits to students and biodiversity

Wednesday 8 May 2024 2.54pm

In June 2023, Herefordshire Council’s Greener Footprints initiative ran a poster competition for primary schools across the county, inviting their students to create posters that celebrated the natural environment, under the theme ‘Our Herefordshire, Our Planet’.

Winning submissions from each of the three age categories were awarded with £250 toward an environmental education project at the school. Ashperton Primary Academy submitted a number of entries and bagged the top spot for the Early Years category.

With the £250 prize money the school elected to purchase a number of bug pots, magnifiers and ID sheets for British plants and invertebrates. With purchases made, and insect ID season around the corner, we made a visit to the school to learn about plans to use the equipment, and much more!

Caroline Bullock, Deputy Head says: “The children love going out with [the ID sheets] and using them outside, but even in the classroom they love just sitting there and reading them. Other classes have used them in computing to create branching databases, which you can use in the identification through following the track. They’ve been using them in all sorts of ways – invariably if you go in and it’s reading time, you’ll see a great big group, reading them, talking about them, calling Chris over and saying ‘Look at this one, Mr. Bandfield!’ So they’re really engaged.”

Ashperton Primary Academy are keen to share their learning with other schools. Find out more as Head teacher Chris Bandfield and Deputy Head Caroline Bullock share their experiences, and tell us about the exciting projects and plans on the horizon for Ashperton Primary Academy