The Plans....

Click on the image to get a better view.

Just in case some of you haven't seen the plans for the allotment in the windows of the school here they are! The allotment will be situated behind the lock ups and to the left of the port cabins. The plans are an amalgamation of the two winning entries in the design an allotment competition which we held earlier in the year.
The circular structure in the middle is a canopy/sheltered outdoor classroom area.
The rectangular segments around it are the raised beds, that the children are in the process of making. The theory behind the design is that it represents time -12 months of the year! The missing bed at the top will be a walkway into the allotment and this will be made into a virtual bed/frieze tiled floor with the children's artwork.
There will be a very shallow pond area - bottom left (hopefully) and a fruit tree area - bottom right. A sculpture made by the children will feature- bottom centre.
A tastefully decorated potting shed, with a sedum roof and patio, compost bins and water butts -top left. At the top right hand side we are hoping in time to build a green house from recycled plastic bottles or even better still have a geodome!

Thank you for supporting us by helping to raise all that money in the Welly Walk. Hopefully we can really get a head start with completing this project and more importantly use this fantastic resource as part of the childrens education.





Idea for a covered learning classroom in the centre of the school garden

A Geodome



A sedum roof on a shed

Day Two of making the raised beds!

The children are very proud of the work they did and can't believe that they had the opportunity to make the raised beds for the allotments. I think you will agree that they have done a fab job! Well done everyone. Scroll down to see the photographs of day 1.

Why not leave a positive comment about their achievements. I am sure they would love the feedback!

GRAND DESIGNS!

Wow! what a FANTASTIC start to our allotment. A HUGE thank you to Tim (Mr Orrell) who has supervised and coordinated the raised bed activities, we have made great progress with eight beds completed and a few more on their way.

The most important thing is that the children have made them themselves and have thoroughly enjoyed it!
The next jobs on the list are...

• finish the beds and make deeper ones for potatoes and carrots etc to be grown in
• line them with plastic
• order some compost
• put them in place and fill them
• put up the allotment fence and gate

Enjoy the slide show :0)
Mrs James

Fingers Crossed!

On behalf of the Forest Schools Committee Mrs Terrans (who kindly volunteered)  is entering us into The Royal Welsh Show School Gardens Competition. We have to provide an A3 montage of all our plans for our allotment and fundraising activities. Some of the competition prizes are:

• Complimentary entry for the children at the show.
• Packets of Sutton seeds to help start your project.

Fingers and toes crossed that they like our ideas and plans! Look out for the competition entry on Penygawsi Forest Schools display.

We have made a start!!!

Last Thursday Eryri and Tryfan began to make the raised beds ready for the allotment area. They were really hands on with the measuring and sawing of the wood. On Tuesday they plan to continue working on fixing the wood together and finishing the raised beds. Thank you to Mr Orrell who has organised the activities and is advising us on how to develop the allotment site. Watch out for pics soon!
Forest School Rangers

FOREST SCHOOL RANGER MEETING AT 11.45am on MONDAY 13th of JUNE. PEN Y FAN CLASS.
AGENDA
FOREST SCHOOL BOXES
UPDATE ON ALLOTMENT AREA
NEW WOODLAND SURVEY
NAMING THE OLD AND NEW WOODLAND AREA
FOREST RANGERS END OF TERM TRIP :0)

More Trees!

I have just order another free Hedge and Copse Pack from the woodland trust through their Green Tree Schools award. This has given us another 2 points in the scheme and now we are only 3 points from a GOLD award. Only 400 schools in the UK have this award.
We successfully planted 30 Birch, Cherry and Rowan trees as part of our give it some welly day and they are growing really well. The new tree pack that will arrive in November and will allow us to plant more in another area of the school and also replenish any trees that have not survived in the new wild woodland area. If you look to the left as you are walking up the drive, on the hill,you will see a patch of longer grass. This is where the trees are planted and the grass has been left to grow to encourage all sorts of plants and mini beasts. We plan to do a survey of the area and we have been told by Mr Orrell that we have a wide variety of plants and insects already at the site. We will publish our findings when they are ready.

Our next plans for the Green Tree awards are:
- To recycle Christmas cards, mobile phones and ink cartridges.
- To visit a woodland.
- To carry out the woodland and words project.
This will make us a GOLD School, so please support us if you can.
The Forest Rangers have to produce a whole lot of evidence to show that we have been working hard on the scheme too!!!!
BUSY BUSY BUSY.....
Thanks Mrs James
-

We have scanned the ground and are ready to go...

Hopefully with fingers and toes crossed we can start next week.

Check out the windows in school that have our plans on...we are very excited!

Mrs James