Greater Aylesbury In and Out of Schools LAF Project 2019/20

Chiltern Rangers engaged with young people and adult volunteers on various sites in the Aylesbury area giving children an experience of special places in the Chilterns. We are grateful for the support of Bearbrook and Broughton Junior Schools, Aylesbury Vale District Council, BBOWT, Watermead Parish Council, Liscombe House and the Ashridge National Trust for their partnership in making this project possible.  All of the sites were new to Chiltern Rangers and the funding helped us to partner with AVDC, Broughton Junior, the National Trust at Ashridge and Liscombe House for the first time.

In School we worked with pupils to design and improve their school grounds for wildlife and learning and then worked with pupils and staff to start to re-wild this area of land.

Broughton Junior and Bearbrook Combined Schools In School Projects:

The project began in both schools working with their enthusiastic ECO Council Groups to survey their school grounds and then design and sketch different areas to improve habitats for wildlife.  We then worked with a variety of pupil groups at each school to bring the plans into reality this included tree work to improve the habitat and accessibility of Bearbrook’s copse, planting a Hazel coppice area at Broughton and at both schools developing meadow areas, planting mini orchards, conserving butterfly feeding nettle areas, creating spray painted arty bird boxes and interpretation boards etc!

Out of School

Chiltern Rangers ran two out of school sessions in the Greater Aylesbury LAF area and two sessions helping children to experience other sites in the Buckinghamshire Chilterns, broadening their experience of our beautiful County. In addition we are running a drop in family arty bird and bat box and litter pick session at Bedgrove Park.

In the summer a minibus full of Bearbrook Pupils helped BBOWT to maintain a newly planted hedgerow and restore a meadow at Watermead. On what was a very hot day they also took time to appreciate the insect life living in the meadow sweep netting in the meadow margins.

Bearbrook children joined some of our Chiltern Rangers volunteers at Liscombe House to create woodland glades and scallops as the start of a long term project at this site to increase the diversity of habitat.

We took over 40 Broughton Junior pupils to help Aylesbury Vale District Council by planting 50 oak trees in Bedgrove Park as a part of a large tree planting project.

A minibus group travelled to the Ashridge Estate to work with some of our volunteers, National Trust Rangers and Butterfly Conservation volunteers to cut down patches of hawthorn to create a special network of sheltered glades to help the spread of the rare Duke of Burgundy Butterfly. This work joins nicely with the work we have been doing to conserve the Duke of Burgundy in the North West Chilterns LAF area too.