Netherton Primary School Tree Planting at Carbarns Highwood

Netherton kids play their part in creating a new local woodland area at Carbarns Highwood.

Netherton Primary School became interested in the Carbarns Highwood project when their head teacher, Mrs Joanne Smith, came to the pre-project community consultation session held on 10^th October 2012.  When Central Scotland Forest Trust (now Central Scotland Green Network Trust - CSGNT) spoke to her in more detail, we agreed to hold a tree planting event with the school and a photography competition, if this could be arranged.

Two tree planting sessions were subsequently held on 3^rd May 2013 and 29^th November 2013 when a total of 34 children took part in activities, despite the inclement weather for the former event.  The attempts to hold the photography competition stalled initially but the whole school visited the woodland in spring of 2014 and all pupils had the chance to take photos and put forward their favourite.  The photos were short-listed within the school before Mrs Smith and Mike Batley of CSGNT decided upon the winners.

A presentation took place at the school in May 2015 where the winners received prizes, including a camera for Ewan Sinclair, from the P4 class, the overall winner.  Ewan was happy to say that he took his picture because the dandelion was such an innocuous flower, a weed in our gardens but looked so bright in the woodland.

The woodland area is more generally used by the children both in and out of school time and this encouragement can only support a positive attitude to this resource in the future.

 - Mike Batley, Development Officer, Central Scotland Green Network Trust