Noticeboard

The lovely Handy Mandy picked up 10 new chickens for the school from Nibley Bird Farm. They have settled in well and just laid their first egg! If you'd like to help look after them at weekends and in the holidays, please let us know. 

Monday 15th May saw the delivery of 22 new budgies, kindly donated to the school by a lovely local couple who had seen the sad news of the theft on TV. They were added to the new aviary, which was constructed by a firm in Cheshire on a bespoke basis, after the local community kindly donated over £3000. It is lovely to have our feathered friends with us again!

It has been wonderful to have several of our Volunteer Readers back in school with us again. The children desperately missed them during the pandemic, and the teachers missed the enormous impact they make on both the pupils' ability and enthusiasm for reading.

We are aware that Covid hasn't gone away, and that schools are not the safest of places infection wise, so we really appreciate their decision to come back. 

You will not have failed to notice that we had to have 5 trees felled during the summer. These were along the path to the top gate, so they were mainly large, well established trees, over 60 years old. Sadly, our latest tree survey identified several ash trees that had something called ash dieback. This is a fungus that blocks the water transportation system of trees, and kills them off from within. Infected trees are cut down as most will die, and in an attempt to stop the fungus spreading. 

It’s thought that we are going to lose around 80% of our ash trees in the UK due to this fungus. This is going to have a devastating impact on the landscape and the biodiversity of our woodlands, as well as a major loss in connections between habitats as we lose hedges and individual trees outside of woods.

Have a look at what the Tree Champions have been up to this year. Find the video under Children/Tree Champions.