Withern school wins environmental award

The FCC Lincolnshire Young Environmentalist Award 2018 was presented to St Margaret’s CE Primary School on May 3, in a ceremony held at Whisby Nature Park in Lincoln.

St Margaret’s was one of the seven finalists who were in the running for the award, in recognition of their ongoing environmental work, outdoor learning and wildlife habitats.

All seven schools gave inspiring presentations on their environmental work which including creating habitats for wildlife in school grounds, growing organic vegetables and keeping bees.

The judges were particularly impressed with St Margaret’s CE Primary School’s commitment to outdoor learning and environmental work in the wider community.

The school has an outdoor learning space with an organic growing area, outdoor science lab, a unique outdoor centre for mathematics, botanical gardens, a pond, a butterfly garden, and ‘bug hotels’.

Their environmental work extends beyond the school boundary, with every member of the school community being responsible for surveying the local woodlands, fields and water ways, and contribute environmental data which is fed into national surveys.

Head teacher James Siddle said: “We are absolutely delighted to win this award.

“Both pupils and staff have been working very hard over a number of years to improve the school grounds for the benefit of the environment as well as developing opportunities to learn about the natural world - for example through research and filmmaking.

“We share our journey of discovery with the local community through our ‘pumpkin day’ and ‘community meals’ as well our on-going biodiversity work.

“This award will give us the encouragement to continue on this journey and work even closer with our local community.”

The runners up were Boston West Academy and Burton Hathow Preparatory School.