Caldecott Primary School - Saturday, 12th September 2026
Blog by Sally. Photos by Julio, Michele and Sally
Looking at our autumn programme, you'd be forgiven for thinking we couldn't be in two places at once, but we were! With two willing leaders and sites within close proximity to each other, Adrian led a party of 15 at Caldecott Primary School to tidy up their forest school site, including new members, Catherine and Phil, whilst Eleanor led a session at Southern Town Park (more of which in a separate blog) for the autumn cut and rake of the wildflower patch, as we would be hard-pushed otherwise to fit in two separate sessions for both of these lovely local sites. Adrian had given a head start to the Southern Town Park site, by scything and raking the main wildflower patch earlier in the week, so that the group could then join the rest of us at the School at break time.
We'd been given permission to park in the School's car park, where we met Amy from the School, who explained that she wanted us to clear the forest school site so that the children could enjoy it, as it had been neglected in recent years. Looking back at our records, we could see that we last visited the site in 2018.
Part of Amy's role is health & safety for the School, so it was important that when we found any timbers with nails in, that these were removed from the site. We could not use any of the thorny cut vegetation for dead hedging, but some of the old timbers were stacked so that this would form a good habitat for invertebrates. When uplifting one of the timber logs that the children used as a seat, we disturbed a large black beetle with a segmented abdomen - it was very speedy and disappeared into the vegetation before we could get a good look at it, but it was possibly a Devil's Coach Horse beetle. We carefully replaced the log back in position so that it could come back home when it wanted to.
Amy was keen to have a blank canvas so that they can re-start the forest school. We were asked to cut the tall grass, remove overgrowing branches from the hedges whilst being careful of the fruit trees, remove emerging blackthorn, which was scrubbing up the forest school, create habitat piles, clear the gateways, tidy the compost bin area, remove sycamore trees growing up against the fence, remove ivy growth from the fence. The cut vegetation was put in the compost bins, which will be good habitat in their own right.
We soon set about to work and litter piles started to build up with people grabbing loppers and saws, whilst the scythers started to cut the tall grass. We found lots of balls of various types, too. Amy grabbed some black bin liners to fill up with litter. We then had to rake up the grass, which was taken to the compost bins, by which time these were getting full of the sycamore and ivy that had been cut down as unfortunately these were growing in the wrong places - risking damage to the fence and also blocking the pathway.
The Southern Town Parkers joined us triumphantly at break time, having managed to extend the wildflower patch and get all the wildflower seeds sown ready for next year.
With the extra hands we were able to finish the job in good time and we left the site having met the brief. Amy thanked us on behalf of the School and we hope to return to help if we are needed again, but perhaps in an earlier timeframe. We shall look forward to hearing how the children enjoy their forest school.
The main entrance from the car park on arrival. Jim leads the way, scythe in hand, to the far end where we can set up camp under the shelter.
The overgrown side gate from the playing field on arrival
The site before work started
Adrian briefs the group, as we assess what needs to be done
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