Date 30/3/12
Margrove Heritage Centre and visit to local school
9.30-3.30

Aim
To enable teachers with little experience of fruit or vegetable growing to work with their children in setting up a successful food-growing area.
The course will look at setting up your own food-growing area and explain how to grow vegetables and fruit, supported by practical exercises and links to the curriculum

Learning Objectives
By the end of the day, teachers will:
1. Understand the personal and educational benefits to be gained from growing fruit and vegetables in school
2. Be familiar with the basics of growing a range of (a) vegetables and (b) fruit suitable for school gardens
3. Have the confidence to work with their children to plan, develop and maintain a food-growing area appropriate to their school
4. See the potential for delivering a wide range of curriculum topics through activities related to the food-growing area

Key Stages targeted: 1 - 3 (However all growing advice is relevant to all key stages).
Curriculum links National Curriculum links (http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/).
Science
Maths
English
Art & Design
Other curriculum areas will be discussed
Cost - £100
A Booking form can be downloaded for the link below

Care for wild creatures this Valentine’s Day

Gardeners are urged to give love a helping hand this Valentine’s Day, by The Wildlife Trusts and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
By providing shelter, food, and wildlife corridors, gardeners can offer space for wild species to come together, and play a vital role for the next generation of UK garden wildlife.
Morag Shuaib, The Wildlife Trusts’ Big Wildlife Garden Awards Project Manager, said: “As mating season approaches, species from blue tits to butterflies are about to get busy building nests and laying eggs.
“With many a species looking to hook up and settle down, this is a great time of year to offer some hospitality and be in with a chance of winning The Big Wildlife Garden Competition, which closes on 20 May 2012.”

Helen Bostock, an RHS wildlife expert, said: “With just a few changes everyone can make their gardens wildlife friendly. Contrary to what some people think you don’t have to let your garden grow wild. Feeding birds, careful placement of nesting boxes and planting pollinator friendly plants are easy, straight-forward things to do that make an enormous difference.”

Here, The Wildlife Trusts and the RHS provide some tips for keen and caring wildlife landlords to help create the perfect love nests:

Avian abode
It’s estimated that each year around two million birds fledge from nest boxes. There’s an array of shapes and sizes to choose from, depending on the species you are providing for. To make a nest box extra appealing to couples looking to start a family, place it out of reach of predators. By leaving untidy patches in the garden, and growing a variety of native species, attract in the insects and grubs which will provide valuable food for chicks.

Speed dating

Hunton...

The Skelto...

Some of our past events

Response to Our Forests and Jonathon Porritt’s comments about The Wildlife Trusts and the Public Forest Estate (11 January 2012)
Monday 16th January 2012

The campaign group Our Forests set out its ‘vision for England’s woods and forests’ in January 2012. Prior to this, it submitted a Freedom of Information request to Government, The Wildlife Trusts and other NGOs regarding the proposed sale of the Public Forest Estate in July. Below is our response to their statements published on 11 January.

On what Our Forests call the ‘shopping list’

We believe it is important to be in dialogue with the Government about issues that could have a profound impact on achieving our charitable objectives and our vision of A Living Landscape. Open and frank dialogue does not mean that we are in agreement with what a government suggests and we would never engage in deal-making that would go against the interests of nature or the people who love it.

From a very early stage The Wildlife Trusts made it clear to Government that there should be a proper long-term strategy for the Public Forest Estate. Our forests are an important element of what needs to become a resilient ecological network across England, whether they are in public, private or voluntary sector ownership. Land in public ownership offers the Government a key opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to securing nature’s recovery - as sought in the 2010 Lawton Review - a point we have consistently made.