Reflections

Natasha's reflection:

Creating the meadow was a fantastic and rewarding journey for the three of us to go on.  As well as benefiting the children by providing them with a wonderful learning and reflection space to support many areas of the curriculum, we learnt a great deal ourselves! Our team of three overall worked really well together. Although we all work quite differently, we played to each other’s strengths, took different roles in the project, and shared the workload to be most efficient.   

We were lucky have a considerable amount of freedom over the whole design of the project and spending of the budget, which allowed us to use our creativity, but with that also came huge responsibility. We had to ensure that we were organised, knowledgeable and communicated well amongst ourselves and with those involved in the project at school.

Through research and advice from experts we developed our knowledge so that we could carefully pick safe, native species suitable to the conditions of the site, whilst attracting and supporting a wide range of wildlife.  We gained experience in how to carry out risk assessments to ensure that everyone was kept safe while working on the project as well as sourcing the right tools and equipment for the tasks at hand. We learnt a lot about managing a budget and being resourceful where we could. Although £500 was a generous budget to be allocated, with the size of the site and our ambitious plans we knew that we were going to have to be creative to achieve everything. We made the decision to allocate the money to the plants and pathways and to source free and recycled materials for the benches and bug hotel.  This was in keeping with the theme of being environmentally conscious. When seeking donations, we were overwhelmed by the generosity of school community, organisations and members of the public!

Of course we encountered a few obstacles along the way, however, we worked together to solve the problems, remained resilient and adapted and refined our plans where necessary. Our biggest challenge was that we had underestimated the sheer size of the task to prepare the ground for the meadow seed, which meant that timescales were stretched.  This required hard work and determination from us and our group of helpers to get the seeds down before winter arrived!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the project and it has inspired me to take part in similar work in the future. It made me aware of the importance of projects such as this, providing habitats for wildlife, particularly as many are being lost to urban development, and allowing children to value and connect with their environment.

On reflection, and taking into account the amazing feedback from the school, the project has been a huge success and I feel that we have certainly ‘made change happen’!

Georgia's reflection:
While taking part in this project, there have been a lot of positives but some challenges. At the beginning, I found it difficult to envisage the end product due to having no knowledge of how many resources we could get within the budget, feeling like it was impossible to meet the requirements the school asked for, and whether we would end up with an end product in the short space of time we had to complete it. Nonetheless, as time went on this was made a lot easier thanks to meetings with the head teacher and PTA, gathering ideas from the pupils' themselves so that we were creating something that was going to be beneficial to them, and dedicating a specific time each week to commit to the creation of the meadow.

One of the things I found most challenging was deciding that we needed to completely renovate the ground and we had to do it all ourselves. I completely underestimated how many weeks this would take before we could go any further with the project. It was hard work, but with the help of the gardening club at the school, we eventually turned the soil ready to sow the seeds. We were all very determined though and set ourselves a time frame to get it done, so that we did not fall behind and had a substantial amount of the project completed before a set date.

A massive positive from the project was the amount of donations we received from the PTA, parents of children at the school, and local businesses. Without all these donations, our budget of £500 may not have covered the entirety of our resources, especially as we underestimated the amount of bark and wildflower seeds we would need. Also, gaining the extra help from other professions, such as carpenters, was extra beneficial and meant that we knew the benches were going to be made professionally, accurately and as safe as can be.

The group itself has been very committed to the creation of the meadow. We all had different interests and parts of the project that we focused on individually and I think if we did it any other way it would have been more challenging and could have created more disagreements throughout the process. All in all, we have had very few disagreements and possibly just added, improved or slightly altered one another's ideas.


Lizzie's reflection:
This 'Making Change Happen' project has been such a fun assignment to complete! From day one when we found out what our project was going to entail, it was clear that we were all excited about getting started, but also hugely apprehensive as nobody had any experience in gardening or landscaping. We knew that the project was going to be a lot of fun and also a lot of hard work.

One of the things that I found most challenging about this project was having to complete the bulk of it during the winter months. As the meadow was an outdoor task, we did not always have the weather on our side and having to do many hours of digging in the cold and rain was not very enjoyable. Luckily, we were all in it together and we were able to help and encourage each other to keep going. We were all quite worried during our school placements, because it was so snowy and cold and we thought that it would prevent our meadow from growing like we had hoped. However, luck was on our side and the grass and wildflower seeds survived and ended up growing really well.

We definitely couldn't have completed the project without the support of the school and the donations that we received. By not having to do any fundraising, it meant that we were able to make a start on the project early on, giving us lots of time for the meadow to grow. Also, having involvement with professionals enabled us to ensure that what we were creating was to a high standard and appropriate to the environment. Getting the children involved in the tasks we were doing was also really rewarding, because it allowed them to input their ideas and make the area somewhere that they felt excited about.

Working with Georgia and Natasha on this project has been brilliant. We have all worked hard as a team and been able to create a meadow that we are all really proud of. Even though there were times when we had disagreements over ideas, we were always able to resolve any problem, resulting in us completing the meadow to a standard that we are thrilled with!

Southbourne Junior School really have been a joy to work with and I really look forward to receiving updates from them and finding out how the meadow is doing and how the children have been using it. When handing over the project, it was clear how happy the school was with the meadow and it made all of the hard work worthwhile!