Nature makes me feel at home
Connecting with nature in a week of ‘firsts’
We planted 113 trees that can produce oxygen!
You can literally slide down mud!
I've learnt a lot about nature.
Wow! Look at that view - isn't it beautiful. You don't get that in London. It's just houses.
This week has been one of the best weeks of my life!
For 36 pupils from Oxford Gardens Primary School in London, an OWL visit to Magdalen Farm in Somerset was a week of first times. The school is situated near Grenfell Tower and many of the school’s families have been re-homed since this tragic disaster. On arrival at Magdalen, most children had never spent a night away from home, many wore wellies for the first time, and some were terrified at the prospect of mud!
The week proved to be transformational as the children became increasingly accustomed to their surroundings and involved in hands-on tasks including caring for farm animals, cultivating plants, pond-dipping and den building.
The nature here is amazing. It has wonderful organics which taste really nice!
A child who started the week by describing mud as ‘disgusting, I can’t look at it, the sound, the texture, everything, it’s disgusting’ ended the week by being able to walk through it.
Others went from being shocked that the apples in the breakfast fruit bowl were picked from a Magdalen tree to identifying, harvesting and tasting a range of vegetables for their supper.
I think I will go outside more after this.
Towards the end of their OWL residential, pupils also began to recognise the different ways they are nurtured by nature, how human activity impacts nature and how they could make pro-environmental choices.
So, we're making it harder for plants and animals to survive because of pollution and climate change.
The residential was made possible through The OWL Collaboration, find out more about this programme here:
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