Goldstone Primary School & Little Owls Nursery

At Goldstone we have a designated patch of grass at the front of the school where we are growing the grass and have planted native species of bulbs and flowers. The eco committee have been busy with Ruth Chalker, our horticulturalist, creating a new area for wild flowers outside the entrance to Little Owls. This is important to us as a school because, sadly, over a quarter of UK pollinators have disappeared since 1980 and this is largely due to loss of habitat. By growing our lawns in May we hope to give bees and butterflies more opportunities to feed on nectar and make homes. 

However it is not just the school who have been supporting wildlife in this way - many members of the Goldstone community have also participated in No Mow May this year. Over 100 of our families joined in with Mo Mow May which means, as a community, we have given over 25,755 square metres to nature!

This all goes to show that small actions CAN lead to big changes! 

Here are some photographs of the growing gardens that families sent in - we think they are really beautiful! 

This year, Earth Care week gave opportunities for every child in school to connect with nature and learn what they can do to help take care of the planet. Our week started with assemblies furthering the children’s learning on this term’s focus on biodiversity; children learned about Borneo, the animals and plants that make this one of the most biodiverse places on our planet, and why it is a biodiversity hotspot. Highlights include the Little Owls going on a nature walk around the school grounds, collecting natural objects as they went; year 3 building bug hotels in our secret garden; year two visiting the local conservation site, Benfield Valley where they went on a hunt to find different creatures who live there and year reception reading the book, ‘Dear Earth’ and creating their own Earth collage.

This summer term, Goldstone were thrilled that Helen Forrester, chair of the Benfield Valley Project and parent of two children at Goldstone, was able to deliver an assembly to the school. She shared some of the wildlife (including five endangered species) and natural habitats that are in the Valley and explained that it is under threat of development. The children really enjoyed learning more about a place many of them have visited and feel connected to, linking in very well with the Our City, Our World theme this term, Biodiversity.  Helen works tirelessly to campaign on behalf of this beautiful space that is on our doorstep.

More information about the valley can be found here https://www.benfieldvalleyproject.org/

In the Spring term our Year 2 children visited the Hollingdean Materials Recycling Facility. They learnt about how everything we put in our recycling bins is separated then put into huge 1 tonne bales to be made into new objects such as toys, cans and even material to make roads from! The next day Year two wrote poems about all the different noises they could hear using onomatopoeic words.  The photos above shows just four days worth of recycling from across Brighton and Hove!

Recently our children were excited to welcome the 'Running Our of Time Relay' to Goldstone. The relay has been running for a month, starting at Ben Nevis and weaving its way through the UK to finish at Big Ben on July 4th. It is promoting a message about the dangers of climate change and galvanising communities to take action. Eight of our students from years 5 and 6 ran the previous leg with Mr Henderson and some Goldstone parents to arrive at Goldstone to a huge welcome from Year 2. They then ran a relay around the field with our Eco Committee and members of the Squeaky Green shop. The relay runners went on to host an assembly for Years 2 to 5. Footage of the relay at Goldstone can be found on their website https://running-out-of-time.com/, including Elena from Year 6 talking about the importance of looking after nature.

This summer term, our year 2 children and families were very proud as their beautiful art work was displayed in the Phoenix Art gallery in the centre of Brighton. The collages, drawings on bunting and clay models were made in response to a series of ‘Philosophy for Children’ sessions that the children participated in this term.  These lessons, which were lead by PHD student Fliss Bull, gave them the opportunity to explore their responses to nature. Year 2 teachers joined Goldstone families for the private view and many others visited the exhibition over the weekend as well as participating in workshops with Fliss. If you haven't had a chance to view the art work yet, we plan to display it in the autumn term in our very own Goldstone Gallery!

This term our sustainability focus is energy. The children are learning all about sustainable forms of energy, why fossil fuels are bad and how to save energy at home.

The eco committee have been busy helping our school to save energy. As well as photographing themselves showing how to save energy around Goldstone, they have been labelling switches with red, amber and green signs. If a switch is labelled green anyone can turn it off, amber only adults can and red it has to stay on. 

Later on in the term the whole school participated in a competition to design a sustainable school, hoping to win £1,500 to help make our school more energy efficient. See below for some of our fantastic entries!

We also invited Goldstone families to send in photographs of themselves saving energy at home.  Once again, see below for some great energy saving ideas!

Years 1 and 4 participated in workshops to create art work for the Kidical Mass bike ride taking place in Brighton on Sunday 28^th April. 

The children's artwork will be turned into flags to attach to participants' bikes on the day.

Kidical Mass is a worldwide movement that invites participants united by the vision that children and young people should be able to move around safely and independently on foot and by bike.

This term we have already had a visit from Paul Turner from Sustrand who spent a day with years 4 and 5 anaysing lichen around the school grounds to find out about air quality around our school. He has also put up a number of air quality tubes around the school which will help determine how poor the air quality is near the road, the results of which we should have by the end of November.

Thanks to the generous donation of many of our families, we are proud to announce that Goldstone now sponsors 5 acres of rainforest in Ecuador, South America..  This area is located within the Tropical Andes biodiversity hotspot, one of the most biologically diverse area of land on planet Earth.  It contains hundreds of species of tree and is home to many amazing and threatened species.  These include the spectacled bear, puma and ocelot, as well as recently discovered species such as the unusually named 'confusing rocket frog' and the olinguito, a member of the racoon family.