At school I have always struggled to find people with similar interests to me in regards to wildlife and conservation, but one person who I did share my passion with was my form tutor Mr Lawrence. We always gave birding updates and shared our weekend ventures during our form time sessions! We got talking about creating an eco club to encourage a love for nature and wildlife in more students and this year alongside another teacher Mrs Briton, we have brought that idea to life!

We started the eco club at the beginning of the year and have brought more sixth form students on board as eco ambassadors. We collectively run the club at lunchtimes weekly and put on a range of different activities.

During winter, we started by building our own bird boxes using the design tech rooms and equipment. So many students from all year groups got involved with the sawing, drilling and painting process of the boxes and in the end we produced 14 sturdy boxes that we later went round and installed on the school site in various different areas including the big trees at the front of the school as well as on wooden fences and around the athletics track.

Outside of school, I volunteer a lot of my time to wildlife organisations. For example I am a young ambassador for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust where I work to engage more young members, I get involved with lots of monitoring and surveying for the PTES and other organisations, I created my own group called Young Nature Watch where we organise lots of events and activities to connect young people with their local wildlife, I have a blog and social media pages to inspire a love for nature in more young people and I am also a trainee bird ringer for the BTO which all helped me in being a finalist for the BBC Countryfile Young Countryside Champion award last year.

During my surveying work, I got involved with monitoring the tit nest boxes around the woodland on my families farm. So during a lunchtime, Mr Lawrence and I also went round the school site to check our boxes. We were so excited to find lots of boxes being used mainly by Blue tits but also by a big brood of hungry Great tits too! It was brilliant to see a large number of the boxes being used and a great reward for all the students who helped make them!

During our eco club sessions, we have also created our own allotment on the school field. We all helped fill some big planters with soil and have planted lots of different vegetables including radishes, courgettes, peas and potatoes. We can’t wait to get together at the end of the season to harvest the goods that we have grown!

Throughout the year we have also put on a range of different activities too such as building a big bug house out of old wooden pallets from the canteen, organising sunflower sales, second hand clothes swaps and taking part in the Big School Birdwatch!

I thought I would share to you the work that we do to praise the school and our eco and sustainability leads Mr Lawrence and Mrs Briton, as the club has provided so many opportunities for the students who come along and should be used as an example of how other schools can get involved too!