As soon as we arrived, we were set with a bit of a challenge.. the part of the field that we had already worked on had turned rock solid! Instead of trying to soften it, we decided it would be best to make a start on the remaining part of the field that was still covered in grass and get it finished. The dirt pile was getting bigger and bigger, which made us realise that we needed to work out how we were going to transport it out of the school grounds.
Mid morning, Mrs Buncle came over and gave us some crocus bulbs that she had received from the Eco-Summit, which the Eco-Warriors had attended the previous week. Lizzie took them, so that she could begin to plant them into pots at home to make sure that they were ready for the meadow later on in the year.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs Jones came out and joined us with the children from gardening club. This week they were wearing much more sensible clothing. We asked for some of the children to focus on removing any remaining weeds and others to help remove the top layer of the soil. Mrs Jones was also a huge help at doing this. After an hour and a half of hard work, we were practically finished! This was a huge relief as it was a much tougher and time consuming job than we realised.
We asked some of the children to write us a few sentences about their experience of helping to create the meadow:
"I really enjoyed having the opportunity to help out with the meadow as I don't really get to do much gardening at home. I feel it was good that we were able to help with something for the school." - Megan T, Year 5
"I loved helping making our own meadow. It was a really fun experience and the helpers were lovely. Many students haven't had the chance to get hands-on in our field, so I think now they will be very grateful as am I." - Mary, Year 5
Just before packing up to go home we were visited by two ladies: Dr Alison Barker, an entomologist and Sarah Hughes, the Community Wildlife Officer at Chichester District Council. They wanted to see what we were up to and offer advice. They checked the different types of grass and flowers that we were anticipating to use within the meadow and suggested more that we hadn't thought of. They also said it was likely that they would be able to provide us with some some resources to use within our project. One idea that they did have, was to incorporate more habitats into the wildlife area for lizards and stag beetles, which we will now look into.
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