Bee Friendly

Name of School:

Hinde House Secondary School, Sheffield

Year Group:

KS3 & 4, New Start Centre

Aim of Work:

Community cohesion for newly arrived young people, environmental education

What did we do?

Bee Friendly: a school and community project

Growtheatre partnered with the New Start Centre at Hinde House Secondary School on a project funded by Grow Wild called Bee Friendly.

Pupils, all of whom had recently arrived in the UK, worked alongside community partners from the Flower Estate in Wincobank: both the secondary and primary schools, Haythorne Place residential home, Wincobank Upper Chapel and Flower Estate Family Action.

They worked together to create a trail of Bee Friendly! planters full of UK native wild flowers that were especially chosen to attract bees. The project culminated in a Launch Day run by the pupils – they visited each community setting, planted up the planters and had a great time running fun stalls and celebrating all the brilliant work that young people had done to design, create, plant up these planters.

What impact did the project have?

The planters improved the Flower Estate’s urban environment and increased their engagement with and appreciation of UK native wildflowers.
The project improved the social integration of pupils and their families within the local community, and developed empathy with people in their local area, particularly the residents of the care home and primary school children.
The project developed the pupils’ communication and language skills through the co-creation of the Planter Trail with community partners.
To provide a legacy beyond October 2018, Community Partners will be recruited to be custodians of the Planters on the Trail.
The Bee Friendly! planters that the young people had designed, created and planted up were shared in the community settings during the Launch Day run by the pupils.
Community partners were thrilled to receive them and now have a colourful and bee friendly planters on their grounds.

"What a successful project - staff and pupils were certainly buzzing (!!) on Tuesday – the launch day. Thank you so much for thinking of us; it was great how you tailored everything to the NSC pupils’ needs and the change of budget whilst still delivering an extremely valuable, coherent and exciting learning experience. The community aspect of the project is invaluable. Please let us know when we can work with you again in the future."

Fiona McLeod

Assistant Head, SEN, EAL, New Arrival Interventions – Hinde House Secondary School

"We at Upper Wincobank Chapel are thrilled with the planter and were very impressed with the activities the young people had produced. Many thanks to the young people and adults who supported them, and to the funders for this inspiring addition to our garden."

Penny Rea

Community Partner

"Thanks again for hosting me yesterday – the event was a real pleasure to visit and the planters look fantastic! The pupils were great, and it was especially heartening to see how well they ran their activities at the primary school: they should be really proud of themselves. "

Ben Fisher

Grow Wild North England Engagement Manager