St Agnes School must be the only school in the UK which carries out biosecurity checks, checking permanent monitoring stations for signs of returning rats! The children check five coastal stations every 2- 3 weeks  and report back to the Seabird Recovery team whether the chocolate wax has any signs rat teeth marks– so far there have only been signs of shrew teeth marks and they seem to prefer the peanut butter wax.

Today the children took Jaclyn, Lydia and volunteer Susie to check the stations with them and show them the shrew (we saw their grass nests) and snails which had moved into the stations. The chocolate wax was all clear, and the children explained how they knew what to look for and how the teachers would contact us if there was anything suspicious.Thank you so much to all the children and teachers for carrying out these checks. They children are the ‘eyes and ears’ of the project and they will be the ones protecting the seabirds for years to come.

Also we took the outdoors back into the classroom (as it is currently a little windy on the islands). We carried out a wildlife bingo hunt outdoors, and noted willow as one of the trees growing, then back in the classroom we made willow wildlife crafts! We were joined by Susie Taylor who creates and weaves amazing crafts and sculptures from willow. The theme was to make marine wildlife, so she taught us all how to make willow fish then we moved onto to Christmas stars ahead of the festive season, and then the finale was a huge group star-fish displayed at the school! Thanks for a wonderful activity Susie.

You can hear the interview with the children and Susie here. Merry Christmas St Agnes School!