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You know when you see a little bit of plastic off the path and go to collect it? But then it turned out to be a whole bin bag-full of bubble wrap, well buried under leaf litter. We persevered and dug it all out, along with 3 rolls of tape and then half filled another bag within less than 200m of the start of the Common. We will have to return another day to complete the job as the bin-bags were not up to the weight of rubbish! Luckily there are bins within the site, so we could leave the split bags there.

Today we walked from the village of Ovington to the village of Martyr Worthy. The walk was mainly on country lanes and paths and the river Itchen. There were some grand properties and livestock. It was also quite busy with cyclists and people. We took quite a bit of time showing S our route on the OS map. A man spoke to us at length. He was watching out for dogs worrying sheep as he said this was a problem in the area.

The Elderbank Nature Hunters shared their experiences with their class via a powerpoint presentation. The group got the opportunity to tell the other members of the class about the Award. They were able answer questions about the fantastic activities they took part in to achieve the Family John Muir Award.

Autumn has arrived and we are back outside in all weathers discovering what is on our doorstep. We have been looking at the species of tree we have at school and have focused on maple. sycamore and oak trees. We have looked at the leaves, described them, counting features on them, looked carefully at the array of colours on them, following a flow chart on a leaf id app to identify them, and found out where the specific trees are on the school grounds. We have also learnt what the seeds look like from the trees and had fun throwing the syacmore seeds into the air.

One of our favourite 'wild places' at school is the Forest School area where we have a fire pit. Each year we enjoy time around here developing our skills and confidence in managing the fire, learning how to keep everyone safe, cooking a range of food, collecting wood, making up games and stories, singing songs, developing communication skills and noticing the impact being out in nature has on us.

We have a good routine in place of all the jobs needed to be done before starting the fire. We have all practiced using the fire steels and some of us have really persevered with this even though it is difficult. We recap the fire safety rules each lesson and have learnt about the fire triangle. Working as a team is essential. We have pretended to plan a camping night here at school and have listed all the items we will need as well as given jobs to everyone to keep the camp site running smoothly.

For a couple of sessions we were asked to explore the 'wildest, leafiest, least trodden way' we could find. This is what John Muir aimed to do on his 1000 mile walk in 1867. This took some of us up onto the bank (which is outside the school grounds) and quite unfamiliar to us. It has it's challanges as walking on uneven surfaces and up the hill was difficult for some of us. We discovered a lot of fungi, bird boxes and different leaves/trees than we had explored before. This sparked a real sense of exploration in some of us and we were very keen to explore more. These lessons also gave us time with our friends and again, noticed the impact that being out in nature has on our mood and emotions.