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• Wilding Schools Project

  Sun 12 Nov 2023

  Wilding Schools Project

   

  The school has started another exciting new project and are one of the first schools to be involved with the report going to the UK government!  

   

  The Wilding Schools Project is another strand of SOS-UK's Green Schools Revolution programme and will run alongside and complimentary to CAPs. What is involved and the aims of the Wilding Schools project is laid out below:
   

  1. Wilding Schools supports the government to deliver on their '30 by 30', idea is to help your school have 30% of your school grounds for nature by 2030.  
     1. The timeline: long term 2.5 project, starts in September 2023 same as CAPs so both start this autumn. 
     2. We have some funding available for schools to support changes to grounds, you can also apply for external funding for bigger pieces of work if wanting more transformative changes. 
     3. Teachers do not need any expertise in the area as they will be supported. We want the project to be student-led, but does need some staff commitment 
  2. What will be involved: 
     1. Initial assembly (can be joint for both projects with CAPs) 
     2. Wilding Schools onboarding meeting to introduce project to your 'Wilding Council' - essentially your Eco-club group of students, supporting staff, member of senior leadership and ideally grounds team present (so your 2 caretakers) 
     3. Habitat survey of grounds - once you have had our initial meeting and then sign up to be a Nature Park school you will have access to a mapping tool for your school grounds. You would need to go out and map the grounds using this to see what habitats are there, what can be improved/added 
     4. Wilding Plan session - once you've mapped your grounds, we then do another meeting to start writing your Wilding Plan and decide what you want to focus on - should have support from this with local ecology experts such as Wildlife Trust or Southampton Council 
     5. Baseline survey of wildlife you are aiming to increase 
     6. Implementing wilding plan (aim for 30% of grounds to be for nature by 2030) 
     7. Monitoring and evaluation to measure changes in biodiversity - e.g. regular surveys 

   

  Exciting times ahead involving this project and congratulations to Miss Newman for leading it.