Prep School girls practise fearlessness with our new compost worms

This week a group of girls at the Prep School have been practising fearlessness and championing sustainability by releasing tiger worms into our newly built compost heap.

Although the weather was a bit damp it made the perfect conditions for introducing our worms to the heap, so, the girls took it in their stride and marched down with worms in hand to oversee the project.

Tom Woods, our caretaker at the Prep School, has been working hard creating the compost heap from old fence panels and filling it with leaves and other debris from the grounds.

"Since moving onto our Cranwell site in 2014, often providing technical and physical support for teaching staff and also running courses for the students, I have been keen to pursue projects which involve the use of materials found on our grounds and thus keep our carbon footprint as small as possible.

Recently a couple of compost tumblers were purchased by the school so that the girls could become involved with creating compost whilst disposing of non-meat food waste in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

To ensure the sustainability of this project it became clear that a larger compost heap would also be necessary which would have the capacity to take grass cuttings/leaves and vegetable waste from the kitchen as well as that produced by the tumblers.

Whilst chatting to Brian, one of our minibus drivers, I discovered that he had an effective compost system working at home and he very kindly offered to donate a quantity of tiger worms. These are a type of composting worm highly efficient in breaking down waste into nutritious compost."

Now that the compost heap has been built it will be regularly turned and monitored in the months and years to come.

We are hopeful that the first compost will be ready to use by the end of this growing season!

As a school we have a strong commitment to the environment and are always looking for ways to become more eco-friendly. This is just one of the many eco projects which have been undertaken at the Prep School and below are a few others:

• A Celtic hut made from clay rich soil dug from the grounds, logs and sticks gathered from around the site and reclaimed thatch.
• A greenhouse made from upcycled plastic bottles
• Ceramic items made from clay dug from the grounds which is then washed/processed and fired in our outdoor brick-built kiln
• Various outdoor sculptures created from found objects including a leaning tower made from car tyres, a flying fish made from upcycled aluminium trays and an ice cream made from an upcycled traffic cone.
• A large paper moon made from recycled shredded paper which is now hanging from the ceiling of the discovery room

There are also exciting plans to create the set for this year’s summer year 5/6 production using totally recyclable/biodegradable materials. So keep your eyes peeled!