This blog will be written from two different view points, mine and the pupils involved in the project to really give you a feeling of what has been happening since September 2014.
I had only been teaching Geography and Social Subjects at Braidhurst for a year when our Head Teacher, Mr. Hannan, approached me on the stairs with a brightly coloured leaflet in his hand. He had been at a Head Teachers’ Conference and had met my head teacher at my previous school, Mr. Sommerville. Mr. Sommerville had told him about my previous environmental projects and spotted a stall about introducing bee hives into schools. “Miss Logan would love that.”
“I’d like you to look into this Miss Logan” said Mr. Hannan. A quick e-mail to the company, Plan Bee Ltd, and we scheduled a meeting with David Craig and some other teachers from across North Lanarkshire to discuss the project in more detail.
By the end of November Warren Bader, Plan Bee’s chief Bee Keeper, had come out to the school to talk to all of our pupils about the importance of pollinating insects and what it would mean for the school to have a hive. He also set us a challenge. Our hive was plain, white and a little dull. Warren gave us 4 concepts to to draw inspiration from when designing our hive: Scottish Authors, Bannockburn 700, The Common Wealth Games 2014 and The Centenary of World War I.
Mr. Brandon and Mrs. Ballantyne, our History Teachers, had already arrange a beautiful Armistice Day tribute and were in the process of organising a Christmas Truce Football tournament, so it was felt that the World War I theme would compliment their efforts.
Our Art department rose to the occasion magnificently, creating a whole new design unit for S2 and S3 based on a bee hive panel. The pupils’ work was really fantastic.
Every member of staff in the school received a voting slip to choose the best art work from across S2 and S3. 5 winners were chosen for the five faces of the hive. Denisa Bednarova and Zafar Khan from S2 and Nicole Collumb, Emma Ewart and Zoe Oliphant from S3 were the lucky winners. Not only did they have their art work placed on the hive, they also received a jar of Plan Bee’s delicious honey and art supplies for their efforts.
Then is was time to paint the hive…
