About the School Garden Bee and Bug Friendly Competition

Over the past four months local schools have been designing a bee and bug friendly garden for their school as part of a competition funded by the Missendens Community Board and led by the Great Missenden and Prestwood Revitalisation Group. Students from EYFS / KS1 to KS4 have been working hard to think about how best to promote biodiversity and support the life cycle of pollinators right in their own local school grounds. 

Early in the year, local botanist and educator Karen van Oostrum (Prestwood Nature) visited each of the schools and engaged over 1300 students about how they might best think about their design entries. Teachers from participating schools then got to work with their students, aiming for meeting the design submission deadline by 31 March. The design entries came in on time for each of the three streams of the competition [EYFS/KS1, KS2 and KS3/KS4]. 

During April the judges, Karen van Oostrum, Helen Matthews (Missenden Walled Garden), Keith Pounder (The Plant Specialist in Great Missenden) and Christopher Black (GMPRG) reviewed all the designs carefully and selected the winners. We are excited to announce that they are:

EYFS / KS1      Hyde Heath Infant School

KS2                  Great Missenden CE Combined School

KS3 / KS4         Chiltern Way Academy

Prizes totalling £1,500 were distributed to the three winning schools before the end of the summer term and a buddleia bush was given to all participating schools.  As some funding is still available, it has been agreed to try and continue working with schools on further biodiversity teaching.

To all schools, all teachers, all children involved, please know that this has been a remarkable experience. We were truly impressed with each design and hope that you might find ways to make them a reality in your schools. Thank you for taking part.