Outdoor Learning

In 2021/22 we plan to continue working on quite a variety of projects in the outdoors. Some of the projects are personal, such as the John Muir Award while others benefit our school, our community, or even the whole world!

We are fortunate to be joined in these projects by a variety of partners:

1 – John Muir Award

This project encourages us an individuals to think about the outdoors that is on our doorstep and challenges us to: Discover, Explore, Conserve and Share. In June 2021, the children (and staff) were all successful in achieving John Muir Discovery Awards. To achieve this, children took part in and led a variety of activities related to discovering, conserving, exploring and sharing about Papay wildlife. Some pictures of last years efforts are shown below.

In January of 2022, we were delighted to have our application approved to take part in the John Muir Award Scheme again this year. We are all registered for the second level, Explorer Award. Keep an eye on our blog to see how we get on with this year’s projects and learning including:

• Our Visitor Book Box Trail – link
• The 2022 Wheelbarrow Garden Competition – link
• Our Seaweed Survey – link

In Spring and Summer of 2021, we worked on all sorts of projects in our outdoor spaces, including planting tatties and trees. The Papay Market Garden kindly supported us in renovating our greenhouse and it was so rewarding to continue harvesting our food for school lunches well into October of 2021. Another highlight of our year was organising the Papay Wheelbarrow Garden Festival. Our blog now features the rules for the 2022 competition.

2 – Woodland Trust – Tree Planting Project

This project has the potential for world benefit, as we planted over 200 trees in our back field throughout spring and summer of 2021. When we worked as a team we are able to plant 30 trees in 30 minutes! Here are a few pictures of us at work.

In June 2021, we had an article about our efforts published in the local newspaper, The Orcadian. Moving forward, into Spring 2022 we have another 120 trees which we plan to plant around the edges of the school field and the Papay Kirk. This project is kindly funded by the Woodland Trust.

3 – Vegetable Planting with the Papay Market Garden

We are very fortunate to work with our neighbours the Papay Market Garden who are part of the Papay Development Trust. This project has the potential to support the local community through production of fresh produce. The PDT have provided knowledge, support and materials such as our new vegetable planters. You can see some pictures of the work we have done with the PDT across the website.

Once every few weeks we have a session working up at the Market Garden. We’ve learned all sorts to do with soil, compost, and growing vegetables in Orkney. We have a few projects on the horizon this summer, including: growing a wild flower meadow, replanting our school vegetable patches, and running a ‘soil and seed’ workshop for the local community.

You can find out more about the Papay Development Trust here.

More information about what we have been up to in the Spring 2021 term can be found in this blog post.