It has reached the end of the school year and many Forest School sessions are ending for the summer holidays. To celebrate this, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust held a special event with seven local schools. Thanks to players of People's Postcode Lottery, the Trust runs funded Nature Club sessions with these schools, usually on their school grounds, often simply in whatever green areas their playground has. I was lucky enough to be able to head down to the Brandon Marsh nature reserve in Coventry to see them explore a much wider range of habitats, wildlife and outdoor fun!
Although the weather could have been better, the day was excellent. Waking up to pouring rain didn’t deter any of the schools: they all turned up ready to go in their wellies and waterproofs! The day was made up of four activities, den building, minibeast hunting, pond dipping and bird watching, and the children all had a blast! Education officer Naomi Bridges said: “At the celebration event the children were speechless from the moment they arrived right up until the end. Hardly any of them really venture out of Coventry city centre, let alone come to a nature reserve. They said they’d had one of the best days ever. One of the children hadn’t spoken a word to me over the whole project because he was so shy, but during the day you couldn’t take the smile off his face. He even answered a question in front of all the other children.”