School’s wildlife pathway is now teeming with new life

PUPILS at a school in Henley are celebrating more than a year since joining a wildflower planting campaign.

Members of the Eco Team at Valley Road primary planted
7 sq m of wildflowers in April.

The flowers are now in full bloom and the meadow is brimming with a variety of pollinator-friendly species, including purple amaranth, borage, poppies, drooping catchfly, pink hawksbeard, blue cornflower and red campion.

The pupils were given the seeds to sow as part of Nature Squared, a campaign run by Greener Henley in conjunction with the Henley Standard and Henley in Bloom.

The project which started in September 2023 is encouraging participants to sow 1 sq m of wildflowers in their gardens, workplace or community space with the aim of reaching 500 sq m.

The aim is to make more areas of the town more friendly to pollinators, such as such as bees, butterflies, bats and birds.

These creatures move pollen from one flower to another, which fertilizes the plant and enables it to reproduce and produce seeds, fruits and new plants.

To create the meadow on the school’s playing field pupils dug up the existing turf, raked the soil and added sand before sowing the seeds.

The Eco Team, which comprises pupils from Years 4, 5 and 6, reported seeing pollinators at the site including green and white butterflies and bees.

Year 3 teacher Kate Richens, who is one of the Eco Team leaders, said that there are now plans to extend the meadow and create a path running through it.

Ms Richens said: “In June or July, all of these flowers really took off and we now have an absolutely wonderful variety. As an Eco Team, we want to expand the size of our meadow, now we know that it's successful, and it’s going to be more of a giant sweep.”

Ms Richens said that the location of the wildflowers at the top of a bank on the playing field was chosen so the Year 2 pupils could see it from their classroom and to prevent pupils from getting too close to the edge of the bank.

Ms Richens said that she was keen that the school played its part in the project.

She said: “We want to do our bit to help create a corridor for nature so that pollinators have a “superhighway” across the surrounding area despite it being a town.

“It might just be 1m sq — or in our case seven — but if we went up in a hot-air balloon, it would be lovely to look down and see like a patchwork quilt of wild places across the area. Every little bit helps.”

The pupils at the school also learn about pollinators when the school celebrated National Bee Day in May. Its teachers dressed up as bees and the school sowed seven planters, one for each class, which line the school’s entrance.

Hanya Carter, 11, who is in Year 6, said that she learned about the environment after watching documentaries.

She said: “I joined the Eco Team because I care about the environment and because our earth isn’t in the best place right now and I wanted to make a change in our world.

“I’ve watched quite a few videos like David Attenborough about our planet, and school has also taught us a bit about the environment and why we need to help it.”

Alyssa Atkins, nine, who is in Year 4 at the school said that she joined the club as she wanted to make “the world more eco-friendly”.

She said: “I thought our environment needed more garden things for people to go outside more and not use electricity.”

Harper Richings, eight, who is in Year 4, said: “I joined the Eco Team because the world provides nice flowers and food and we need to give something back to the world.”

Mia Mikulski, 10, who is in Year 6, said that caring for the environment was a shared interest she had with member of her family.

She said: “The earth is in a very bad condition, I thought maybe I can help out the school because schools sometimes waste a lot of energy by turning on the lights and stuff.”

Mia said she would like to set up a competition between classes to see who could save the most energy.

Diana Barnett, of Greener Henley, said that the environmental action group was hoping to reinvigorate the campaign, which has recorded around 200 sq m.

She said: “We have given away an awful lot of wildflower seeds and other seeds but it’s getting people to register their square metres, which is important so we know where all the plots are so we can see the gaps.”

Mrs Barnett said that the project had come at a crucial time for the insect population. 

A survey carried out earlier this year by Buglife and the Kent Wildlife Trust asked members of the public to record insect splats on windshields. It found that the UK’s flying insect population has declined by as much as 60 per cent in the last 20 years.

Mrs Barnett said: “The point is that we are in a crisis point as far as our insects are concerned.

“Pollinating insects are crucial to our lives and are declining, so we want to do all we can in our own gardens. We have to get everyone involved, it all helps towards making this space friendly for them.”