Page 21 - Wildlife News December 2015

According to a report released in
October by the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on Fit and
Healthy Childhood, play should form a
central plank in nurturing every child’s
health and well-being. The report advises
that children must be given time for
creative play, not only indoors but outside
too – to encourage physical activity,
decision-making, team collaboration and
to drive academic success.
Outdoor play isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a
must have. This is something the staff at all the air. This might be the first time some
Wildlife Trust education centres
understand.
London Wildlife Trust’s Camley Street
Nature Park is a little oasis of bursting
greenery just behind King’s Cross station
December 2015
– a much-needed break from whizzing
trains and towering construction work.
It’s also an outdoor classroom with an
impressive range of resources: quaint
pockets of urban woodland, beehives, a
pond-dipping platform, mighty bug hotels
and a home-grown produce area.
A group of children from Devonshire
House School are sitting comfortably on a
large insect-decorated mat.
“Who’s been here before?” asks the
Trust’s Helen Burton. No hands make it to
of these children have ventured into a wild
green space within London.
Helen takes the class around the
reserve, and they identify the four elements
all wildlife needs: food, water, shelter and
air. They quickly understand the concept
of different habitats, and have dramatic
success with their bug hunt, turning up a
woodlouse-eating spider and an impressive
female stag beetle. As they prepare to
leave, the children collect petals, feathers
and leaves, decorating their memory sticks
in wild jewels to remember this special visit. year. If nature makes children happier and
Devonshire House is just one of many
schools who visit this reserve each year to
rummage under logs, witness a swarm of
honey-making bees or spot millipedes and
toads for the first time. In doing so they
are experiencing something that modern
childhood has all but lost.
The real value of finding a beetle,
or climbing a tree, is that children are
developing a connection to nature, a
love for it. And they instinctively know it’s
important to them.
Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife
Trust run regular Forest School sessions
with inner-city primary children at Brocks
Hill Country Park – a beautiful setting and
a playground of discovery and adventure.
Once a week these five to ten year-olds
leave the traffic and concrete which define
their lives and spend an afternoon in a
small clearing surrounded by ash, silver
birch and rowan trees.
I sit with Ali, a year six pupil who has
recently moved to England from Pakistan.
Beaming from ear to ear, he finds a little
birch sapling. He decides to build a twig
fence around it.
“I want to keep it protected forever!”
he proclaims. We decide to name the little
sapling after him. “You could come back to
see it with your mum and dad,” I suggest.
“I can’t,” he replies. “My father works
all of the time and my mother is too scared
to leave the house as she gets bullied for
being Pakistani. This is the only time I get
to come outside.”
Later, as I talk to one of teachers, she
wells up. “See Sebastian over there?” She
points to a young lad running around
with a magnifying glass. “I’ve been
teaching him for years and I’ve never
heard him talk until today.” With uncanny
timing, he runs up to us. “Miss! Miss! Look
at this tiny snail I’ve found!” Being with
nature has helped build his confidence
and ability to express himself.
Sofia, who has Asperger’s Syndrome,
is another pupil who has changed
dramatically, smiling ferociously as she
focuses on finding as many mini-beasts as
she can. For her and Sebastian this is just
their second outdoor visit.
I’ve watched ten school visits this
year. In every one the children loved
submerging themselves in nature. From
year tens concentrating as they observed
tadpoles developing in their classroom, to
nursery children making mud pies in their
outdoor mud kitchen, wherever nature was
happiness and confidence flourished.
The Wildlife Trusts will have reached
more than 400,000 children this year, but
there are 800,000 children in every school
healthier, then shouldn’t we be doing
more of it? An overwhelming body of
evidence suggests we should.
“Contact with nature should not be
the preserve of the privileged,” says Sir
David Attenborough. “It is critical to the
personal development of our children. We
will be physically, mentally and spiritually
impoverished if they are deprived of
contact with the natural world.”
Let’s create a future generation which
loves wildlife – and which, when it grows
up, will cherish and conserve it.
Every
child wild
How can we ensure future generations grow up
with a love of wildlife? We believe children need
to connect with, love and care for nature – it’s
good for them, and it’s good for nature, too. Our
Every Child Wild campaign will raise awareness
of the gap between children and the natural
world and what we can do about this.
Together we must find the solutions: who else
will look after our wildlife tomorrow?
How you can help
n Take a child you care for somewhere wild to
play and explore.
n Join your local children’s nature club with your
Wildlife Trust – make friends, discover wildlife
and get muddy!
n Tell us what you think needs to happen at
#everychildwild
n Continue to support your Wildlife Trust’s work
with local schools and children through your
membership
wildlifetrusts.org/everychildwild
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