Muskham Primary School - their Wildsquare!

10 December 2008

Eleanor Power, a class 2 teacher at Muskham Primary School, near Newark in Nottinghamshire, tells us how she got involved with RSPB Wildsquare.

My family and I are members of the RSPB so we get mailings telling us about new projects. I regularly surf the Internet as well for activities to do with my class. I found the link to Wildsquare and it fitted perfectly into what we were already doing.

The Wildsquare project allows a class to develop an awareness of a 1km square, of their choosing. We chose an area that included our school. Within our school grounds, we have a wildlife garden. We’re a rural school and we’re lucky to have the river Trent running through our area. Our square also includes the local church, which has bats, an extra element of excitement for the children. We also have the A1 running along the bottom of our Wildsquare, so we have a bit of the modern world encroaching on a rural environment.

We’ve completed a huge range of activities as part of the Wildsquare project. We concentrated some of our efforts on the wildlife garden because this gives us quite a lot of scope for planting and developing an area which helps nurture an interest for helping and caring for the environment.

On the Internet, the children investigated different habitats and we made homes for wildlife – including a hedgehog house, bat box, bird box and a ladybird hotel. Not only did we make a bird box, we fed the birds by making bird cake! To help develop an awareness of the different birds sharing our school grounds, we took part in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch.

We looked at the different colours and sounds in the environment. Walking along the river allowed us to compare the different types of wildlife and plants to what we find in our school grounds. We also pretended we were bees and we were collecting nectar!

I check the Wildsquare website regularly to find out what surveys are coming up. The next survey is winter migrants so I’ve already planned that into the next term’s work.

The Wildsquare project also provides cross-curricular links. For example, it involves Geography because of the river Trent, and Science because it’s plants, animals and the local environment. It even involves a bit of Religious Education when we visit the local church!

Schemes like the RSPB Wildsquare project provide resources and information, and a focus for learning. The stickers and calendar for a class of 6 year olds are just wonderful! It also helps teachers because it gives opportunities to learn outside and makes you feel as if you’re part of a wider community project. You can also share ideas with other schools. I would definitely recommend WildSquare.