From 6th Class Students:
Our school garden has been up and running for over 6 years and every year it gets better and better. This year we worked extra hard on the garden and polytunnel. We planted a lot of new flowers and vegetables such as blueberries, beetroot and lots more. We also put up some more bug hotels. We always make sure to water the plants every morning. We use the food we planted to make salads and pizzas. We are a diverse school. All are welcome in this place :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du_EdHgcY98&t=57s

We also also had a Heritage in Schools Officer in for biodiversity workshops in May. 5th Classes and 3rd class participated.

We used our funding to buy pollinator friendly plants, a rake, a spade, compost....

Our polytunnel coming around nicely :)

Check out what we have been getting up to

We have been planting in the polytunnel and we have natural and organic vegetables. We water the plants every morning and care about them.

In the garden we have lots of flowers because we want them to have a good environment for the bees. We also have bug hotels and bird feeders as we care about the creatures living in our garden.

Our Pollinator Patch taking shape for all our buzzing friends 🐝

An Outline of Our Plans;
When will we start?
We hope to start as soon as possible, we have already let part of the area rewild and we will can start by adding new, vibrant signage and by planting pollinator friendly plants. We also hope to learn more about pollinators and create some artwork for the school garden based on bees as part of the pollinator project.

We will meet as a Green Schools Committee every week. We will aim to get most of our work completed before the school holidays at the end of June and can share it at this stage.

Budget:
We will be using the money to buy compost, pollinator bulbs, butterfly mix, perfect for pollinators wildflower seeds, trees, watering cans, materials for the garden to raise awareness of the pollinator area such as signage and information plaques. pollinator workshops. It is anticipated that the project will cost over €1000.

Covid Safety: We will continue to work within Covid Guidelines and if any additional measures are introduced we will follow these.

Our whole school population will take part in this project - 172 students, 20 staff, parents and wider community will be welcome for input and for assistance, including local Tidy Towns Group.

Yes, we really hope the workshops in school will spread knowledge to help children understand what pollinators are and what we can do to help them.

We have decided the location which is to the front of our school and an area which is allowed to grow wild. We have all the permissions as it is within the school grounds.

Looking forward to getting started, updates to follow :)