Green-fingered pupils from Harborough dig in to help the environment

Children at Meadowdale Primary School in Harborough have been digging in to help the environment.

Along with support from Harborough Woodland, and some very willing parents, the youngsters have planted some 200 trees across their school grounds.

The majority, which were donated by the Woodland Trust and Leicestershire County Council, have been planted to create additional hedging for wildlife and copses for shade in summer while the school also received 10 fruit trees, to form a ‘Golden Orchard’.

The trees will produce ‘golden’ varieties of fruit including apples, crab apples, apricots, plums and large-berried Hawthorn called ‘Big Golden Star’ whose fruit is said to taste like apples.

Head teacher Liz Martin said: “Our school council, which is made up of 30 children, did an absolutely amazing job planting all those trees. They worked without complaint, in really chilly conditions and they should be immensely proud of themselves.

“The new trees will provide more habitats for wildlife, create shade spots for the children in summer, and grow to become lovely quiet corners where they can sit and read.

“The orchard will also become a really important teaching resource within school. It will help to forge the link between growing food and eating healthily, it will support the children’s learning to do

with plants, pollination and lifecycles and in time, we hope to introduce bee hives, developing our own biodiverse corner of the school.

“Thank you to all our volunteers and in particular Harborough Woodland, the Woodland Trust, the Tree Council and Dan Fordham Tree Care for all their wonderful donations.”