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It was Norbury Primary Schools turn to Play their Part during the Finding Futures Programme. This was a fully organised day by Yes Futures to volunteer at Stanmore Common Nature Reserve - one of the charities amazing partners. Norbury students were given a chance to explore their leadership, confidence, and team working skills to support Simon and the team at Stanmore Common Nature Reserve in some exciting activities they had planned for the day.
The challenge the students were set was to remove over 100 invasive trees from the NewHeath and Oakmead regions. The students learnt that these were protected areas of grassland that served as habitats for rare species of plants an animals. The students were shown a Giant Horsetail an ancient non-flowering plant which unusually reproduces by spores not seeds. This plant dates from the dinosaurs!!
Each student was challenged to remove 10 trees from the protected grassland. This was a fantastic teamwork exercise because after 20 minutes Taniya, Hatidza, Meti and Siluna reached their goal and were relaxing, while the others struggled to complete theirs. After a while they realised that we would not complete the task unless they re-joined and helped, so showing real leadership and team spirit they helped out and supported the others until the task was completed. Together the students successfully removed well over 100 trees, contributing to the preservation of this rare and natural habitat, contributing to the local environment.
During the exercise, Simon and the team pointed out an array of different wildlife: Green Woodpeckers, a Solitary Mining Bee that Meti got to hold in his palm, and a Bracket Fungus called Birch Polypore which we were informed was once used to sharpen knives. After a quick lesson on how to spot these, the Stanmore Team thanked the students for their hard work, determination and application.
At the end of the day back at school, we spent some time reflecting on the talents students had used, what they’d learnt and the skills they had developed. It was really interesting to hear the students’ thoughts on the day and how it exceeded their expectations.
Thank You to Simon and the Stanmore team for hosting such an enjoyable and educational Play Your Part day.
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To find out more about how your students could get involved with the Yes Futures Programmes, please contact Sophie, Impact Manager: sophie@yesfutures.org, 07908 687779 or visit our website.
If you're interested in becoming a Play Your Part partner, please contact Helena, Head of Programmes: helena@yesfutures.org.