Students and staff from Samuel Whitbread Academy (Shefford) headed out today to plant trees at our Wilstead Site as part of their amazing quest to plant 2020 trees by the end of 2020. 

Head of Biology Joanne Ambrose and teacher Tony Edwards started an eco-committee of staff and students in 2019 to come up with ideas to make the school more eco-friendly and it went from there. From bee corridors supporting 6000 bees, to the idea of planting 5000 trees – their main goal was to offer students a way of helping fight the climate crisis, in a real, tangible way.

Committee member Emma Dunham, who helped fundraise for the project, suggested tree planting and after much deliberation the target was set – 2020 trees by the end of 2020. The school has done an incredible job working with landowners and parents to get trees in the ground so far – 30 have gone into gardens; 200 at the school (thanks to the Woodland Trust) and 120 in Ampthill Park (in association with the team there) as well as the 200 that they planted at Wilstead today (with more in the pipeline elsewhere).

 

The Forest of Marston Vale was a natural choice for getting involved...we managed to raise the money for the trees through parental and staff donations as well as local business sponsorship. It was overwhelming to see the positive response…everyone wants to help. So we raised enough to plant 200 trees with the forest of Marston Vale and we have more money to continue our mission to plant 2020 trees by the end of 2020.

Joanne Ambrose

With their ‘eco task force’ of students getting involved in all of the planting and having already achieved both the bronze and silver awards from the Eco Schools programme, they are doing an amazing job of creating the Sam Whit forest! They may well be back on our next site later in the year to plant more – with a green flag in tow – watch this space!

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