Schools gather for the first ever Nature Park Schools Forum
Yogi Nagam, Projects and Partnerships Officer for the National Education Nature Park at the Natural History Museum, reflects on the launch of the Nature Park Schools Forum, and talks through what their plans are over the next few months.
During this year's Hidden Nature Week, we sat down with six schools from across the country for the first National Education Nature Park Schools Forum session, to begin to reflect on what young people and staff think about the National Education Nature Park.
The Schools Forum brings together students and staff from primary, middle and secondary schools to talk to them about their experiences with nature and the Nature Park programme. Over the next few months, this representative group from all over England will be meeting online to create three Nature Park Schools Forum principles. We want these to offer a strong school voice that we’ll use to guide our future work on the National Education Nature Park.
In the first session, we heard students from Year 6 to 12 and teachers talk about their favorite experiences so far, their hopes for their spaces and spent some time looking around and the Natural History Museum.
We discussed what schools were already up to and heard about tree planting, sustainability committees, great outdoor teaching and a swampy bench that provided an unexpected opportunity to create an ecosystem! Every school had found different ways to transform their schools and involve their students and really highlighted how taking part in the Nature Park programme can look different for settings based on the opportunities at their school.
After talking through student and teacher responses to their outdoor spaces and what rules are for, we took part in the Biodiversity in Action session at the Natural History Museum’s new Nature Activity Centre. In a jam-packed day, we still managed to find a moment by the Museum’s pond to notice newts, wagtails, snails and willows before heading back to our various corners of the country.
"It was great to meet everyone working on the project and we have all returned with increased enthusiasm and understanding. The students are working on an assembly to share our story and invite wider participation."
Schools Forum teacher
The Schools Forum is continuing to meet until early next year, and during that time we’ll be working with experts in biodiversity, youth action and wellbeing to supercharge discussions with the Forum!
At the end of the process, we hope to be able to respond to youth voice regularly using the principles generated by the group, and what we have learned from their experiences. By delving deeper into what young people want from the Nature Park, we can keep developing the programme to reach more schools and more young people in ways that are important to them.
"We were honoured to welcome such an inspiring and committed group of students and staff from different schools across the country to the Museum to help develop the Nature Park together. It was brilliant to see everyone happily working together and contributing their varied experiences and ideas. I can’t wait for the next meetings!"
Dr Jessica Tipton, Head of the National Education Nature Park at the Natural History Museum.
We’ll be meeting next on the 7 November, this time online, to find out more about how young people and teachers feel they can act for nature through Nature Park, before two more online sessions and a final in-person day back at the Museum in January.
