About Magazine Issue 28 - Summer 2005

Churchwood School's Feathered Friends Come Home to Roost

Churchwood Community Primary School and Hastings Borough Council have been collaborating to tap the potential of a local nature reserve and woodland.

Church Wood & Robsack Wood Local Nature Reserve is an ancient 25- hectare woodland site in Hollington and a great teaching resource for science and environmental studies at the school.

Andy Phillips, the Council's Nature Reserves Officer, contacted the school in July last year with the offer of supplying the school with a bird nesting box fitted with a webcam, funded by the grant scheme Wildspace!

The school now has a resident blue tit family in the nesting box, and the activity can be monitored closely on the library's computer.

Mr Guye, science subject leader at the school, said:

"The video and sound link with the nesting box has been an endless source of delight and fascination for children, staff and parents alike.  Using computer technology in this way represents a powerful and exciting tool for the close study of local wildlife within the classroom.  Within one day of Guy Loder, from the Council, installing the nesting box a pair of blue tits began to build a nest - within two weeks a large clutch of eggs could be seen.  The nesting box will be a valuable teaching resource, and will be used as part of the school's creative curriculum.  We are very lucky to have a nature reserve right on our doorstep - it represents a tremendous resource for the children's learning, particularly in science."

The children already have a few ideas about what some of that learning might be using the webcam: Toby (aged 5) said:

"We will be able to draw birds and eggs"

while Louise (aged 9) suggested:

"It could be used to see the number of eggs being laid"

Georgia (aged 7) added:

"It's a good idea because without it [the webcam] we would not be able to see the birds in the nest."

Churchwood Community Primary School really welcomes the chance to work in partnership with Hastings Borough Council in this way.  Plans are afoot to allow other schools in Hasting and St Leonards to upload photos and the latest wildlife news from bird box cams and their nearest nature reserve onto the newly re-vamped Wild Hastings website.  The Wild Hastings site is due to go live later this year.

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