Primary Schools join forces with TBSHS’ Green Team to plant fruit trees.
Richard Whittington & Thorn Grove primary join Green Team
Last week TBSHS Sixth Formers from the school’s Green Team club, joined forces with Year 5 students from Richard Whittington and Thorn Grove primary schools to launch the Plant It Forward project, carried out in collaboration with Hertfordshire County Council’s Sustainable Hertfordshire team.
As part of a successful application to an initiative called the Positive Actions for Biodiversity on School Grounds, students and staff helped plant 48 mixed-species orchard trees, including apple, pear and plum.
Supported by sixth form students, the younger pupils were shown how to prepare, plant, and protect the young trees. The atmosphere was positive and a great deal of energy was expended breaking the ground and digging the appropriate size hole, before planting and protecting each tree with compost, bark chippings, a supporting stake and protector tube.
The weather remained bright for most of the afternoon, adding to the sense of achievement as the final trees were put into the ground. What began as a practical task quickly became an opportunity for connection — between schools, between age groups, and between students and their environment.
The new trees are an important step in improving the grounds of the new TBSHS school site.
The Sustainable Hertfordshire Project will continue to monitor TBSHS’s orchard trees as part of a case study so that planting and aftercare strategies can be shared with other schools who wish to create spaces for nature.
Organiser of the event, Mrs Joanne Slater, Science Technician said ”We are thrilled that Thorn Grove and Richard Whittington children were able to come and join us for this important initiative. Increasing biodiversity, enhancing the local environment, and establishing green spaces to benefit students and wildlife for generations to come is a really important message for all students; perhaps they will come back in future years and see the results of their work. Hopefully, they will go on to have a lifelong interest in the environment.”
