At St. Bridget’s in Kilbirnie we have been awarded a gold award by the Woodland Trust for getting involved in green activities including tree planting, visiting a local woodland, reducing carbon emissions and recycling.
The Green Tree Schools initiative, which has seen more than 12,000 schools sign up since it was launched in 2008, offers the opportunity to bring the great outdoors, wildlife and green issues into the classroom.
Schools win awards for participating in green activities, which include tree planting, reducing carbon emissions and recycling. We have planted new trees in our school grounds, visited local woods, reduced our carbon emissions and joined in various other Woodland Trust activities.
2021 -22 Journey to Platinum
Woodland Perspective
We completed a pre visit activity, visited the outdoor space at Place view Woods and did a couple of post-visit activity about our experiences in the woods.
Pre visit
We drew pictures of our school from a different perspective. We used a bird’s eye and a bug’s eye view of St Bridget’s.
Outdoors
Post visit
In groups, we explored different artists different woodland perspectives. It was really interesting to discuss why the artists had chosen the perspective and materials. We compared their different styles and discussed what we liked in each of them, thoughts and feelings.
Van Gogh – Tree Trunks with Ivy that shows only the bottom of the trees.
Gustav Klimt – Forest of Beech Trees that shows the bottom of the trees.
David Hockney – Green Valley a bird’s eye view of a tree lined valley.
Georgia O’Keefe – Red Poppy that shows a close up of a flower.
As part of our commitments to being an Eco school and as part of the work we have been doing with the Woodland Trust this year, we created Christmas decorations using branches from a fallen tree. #upcycle #nature #recycle #natural #art
Woodland inspired calendars
After visiting PlaceView woods, Primary 6 created these nature inspired calendars which they will use throughout 2022. The class learned about an art form called pointillism, using multiple small dots, to create these fantastic calendars.
Bird Feeders
After exploring the local woods and discussing the animals that live there we made our own bird feeders and hung them on the trees around our school grounds. These will be important to our local wildlife during the winter months.
POETREE
Inspired by nature and the woodlands, we worked with local Ayrshire poet Simon Lamb and wrote our own nature poems. We tied in with the local Ranger service to help us with our writing. After creating these amazing poems we created a display in our school to share our writing.
Wild Trails
We completed a pre-visit activity by learning about types of trees and animals of the forest, visited the outdoor space at Place view Woods and did a couple of post-visit activity about our experiences in the woods.
Across the school, classes learned about different woodland animals, researched types of trees and sorted different leaves from trees around the local area and in the woods.
Outdoors
We risked assessed before visiting the woods and discussed things to keep an eye for such as low branches, uneven ground, making sure we had appropriate footwear on and also sadly that we may encounter materials left by other people such as broken glass. Once we risk assessed and packed a first aid kit we headed on an adventure. We enjoyed making some dens using materials we found around the woodland area. It was extra fun when we followed our own trails and into the water….
Post visit we used iPads to look at google maps to start to map out our own trails.
Have a Tree Party
We travelled to our local woods and as part of the #OnePlanetPicnic project linked to COP26 and Keeping Scotland Beautiful commitments. Primary 6 cooked their own flapjacks and invited their friends from Primary 5 and 7 to join them on their picnic in a wild place. Staff from across the school also joined them to make the event that bit more special.
Share your woodland words and images
We love visiting the woods and exploring wild places. Primary 6 used the school green screen to share their favourite thoughts and memories of visiting the woods. Back in class we used sticks and objects we found in the wood to create our own artwork and pictures. As a school, we share regularly our learning on our school Twitter page.
