Greening Cliff Lane

Aim

Greening Cliff Lane is the first step to making our school grounds a more biodiverse and climate change resilient environment.

Who are we?

We are Cliff Lane Friends, a charity group made up of parents, teachers, governors and the wider community who support Cliff Lane Primary School in Ipswich, Suffolk. The school currently has around 400 children and a large staff team to support them.
Greening Cliff Lane is the first step to making our school grounds a more biodiverse environment.
We are a town school and for many of our children this is the only green space they spend time in.  

Currently our outside space is very bland with a large expanse of cut grass and hard surface.

We are fortunate enough to have some small wooded areas which we make full use of for our Forest School Sessions with our younger children but we would like to increase these areas and create a patchwork of different habitats to increase biodiversity.
Increasing our wooded areas will also mean that there is more space for our older children to utilise in the months ahead.

History to date

In September 2021 Forest School sessions began at Cliff Lane, the wildlife area which has been utilised for this was hugely overgrown and with a great deal of hard work this was cleared by volunteers and became a useable space and a wonderful place to appreciate the outdoors.

Nursery, Reception, Year 1 have so far all enjoyed using the wooded area and Year 2 are starting a 6 week program in March 2022.The feedback has been amazing from both parents and children......

"This has been my best day ever"

"I like it when I play with my friends on the tree swing, pulling each other to swing higher"

"I enjoyed making a den with my friends, sawing the wood for bug houses and drilling."
"Everyday ***** asks if it is Forest School today and when it is he jumps out of bed and is ready in an instant"

Our Plan for the future

Working with 2 groups within school - our Young Planetarians and our Forest School we have identified some opportunities to further develop our grounds.
These will increase and enhance biodiversity in our town school grounds by creating a variety of ecosystems.

Our plan is two part:

1. Create a green roof on a large area of barren flat roof, creating a new ecosystem

This will be planted with sedum and other flowering alpine style plants and will provide a fantastic source of nectar for bees.
It will also create home for many other insects and small invertebrates and help to create a patchwork of ecosystems across our grounds.
The insulating properties of the green roof will reduce the heat loss from the classroom below. Mental Health - the view of this current grey flat roof is what the staff see from the staff room.

It is well acknowledged the positive effects of nature on the mind and the calming nature of natural colours.
Our school staff need every possible opportunity to help with keeping their mental health strong in these testing times.

This shows the areas for development - the red areas A & B are tree planting and the orange outline shows the Green Roof position.

2. Extend our very small woodland area, planting hedges and more native trees

This will dramatically increase the biodiversity of our playground with native species of trees that will provide nectar, berries and fruit for wildlife and help in the nationwide tree planting mission.
Provide food and shelter for wildlife.
Currently we have a small area for delivering Forest School which is suitable for our younger children. By extending the woodland area we will have enough space to be able to deliver quality sessions to our older children as well.

Forest School has at its heart the development of the connection between ourselves and nature and for children in an urban environment this is even more important.

What will the money be used for

As a Charity supporting our local school we are continuously fundraising and that money goes to assisting with educational supplies, providing extra curricular visits and additional resources. Separate to this fund raising we are currently raising money for new outdoor active playground equipment to replace are aging ones.
This funding will allow us to invest further in our vital green spaces within our school grounds.

Up to £3000 

We will be able to finance fencing to protect trees from the footballs and rough and tumble of the playground whilst they grow and establish.
Stakes to support the trees also need to be purchased as do watering pipes.

Some funding is also needed to purchase smaller water butts to catch our rainwater. We have sourced larger tanks free of charge but we have limited space for these and would like small water butts in classroom outside areas so that the children can take responsibility of looking after the trees.

We are continuing to apply for free trees and hedging when the opportunities arise but would like to purchase some larger saplings, that will green up our space and create a woodland feel more quickly. These will all be native trees but have an increased cost of around £100 - £200+ a tree, depending on their size.
Planting trees of this size will also involve using machinery to dig a suitable hole.

£20,000

The Green/ sedum roof - we have had quotes of upwards of this to supply and install the green roof. We have already had a survey done to check that the building structure is suitable.
We are continuing to investigate alternative options from the quotes that we have been provided but we must ensure the integrity of the waterproofing and that anyone working at height at the time of instalment and during maintenance is safe.

Summary

For our school community the greening of our playground will provide a hugely valuable educational resource as children and adults learn how we can all do our part in caring for our planet as well as developing a connection and respect with and for nature.

Both planting projects will dramatically increase the biodiversity of our playground, creating wildlife corridors and encouraging a wider spread of species in the area.

Both projects will increase green cover, increasing the absorption of CO2 and toxic fumes and increase O2 production. The Green roof will also decrease heat loss from the building whilst using a currently unused and barren area.

The mental health and resilience benefits for adults and children being in the natural world are well documented and the importance of time in nature has only increased with the Covid pandemic of the last couple of years.

"Research shows that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile. Nature can generate a multitude of positive emotions, such as calmness, joy, creativity and can facilitate concentration.
Nature connectedness is also associated with lower levels of poor mental health; in particular lower depression and anxiety levels.
Perhaps not surprisingly, people with strong nature connectedness are also more likely to have pro-environmental behaviours such as recycling items or buying seasonal food. This is likely to lead to further benefits, if these pro-environmental activities can lead to improvements in nature that we can then go on to enjoy. At a time of devastating environmental threats, developing a stronger mutually supportive relationship between people and the environment will be critical."

From https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/nature/nature-research

We hope that you will be able to support us on this project.

This project successfully funded on 12th April 2022