Bicester school children have been logging miles to raise money for a wellbeing garden to be planted in their school’s outside space.  

On Friday 1st April, children from Tackley C of E Primary School wore paper crowns and dressed up as they ran the final mile of their Great Jubilee Journey.

Throughout March, nearly all 110 children at the school filled out mile logs each week as they made a collective effort to ‘get to Balmoral Castle and back’, which is 932 miles. With a collaborative push, the students exceeded this goal and managed to scoot, cycle, walk and run their way to a total of 1,533 miles.     

The school carried out a distance tally each Friday and updated their ‘how far have we travelled’ poster, with the total being read out in assemblies, creating a real sense of collective achievement.  

The students were able to raise £1,455, which will go towards a sensory garden project that they have had on their ‘wish lists’ as part of a wider project to rejuvenate the school’s outside space. The project comes at a time when many school children have been feeling the mental health drawbacks of the pandemic, and schools have been struggling to raise money for extra-curricular projects.

Carrie Southall, Chair of the Tackley School PTA, said: We were so pleased with how this fundraising effort went, obviously it’s been incredibly hard for the last few years to raise money, and to be honest it's always a struggle, being such a small school, but we were thrilled with the support we had. Our children have had to deal with such a lot with the pandemic and we can’t wait to give them a lovely contemplative space to enjoy.”

The school has recognised the fundamental mental health benefits that nature brings, and plan to fill the garden with plenty of colourful flora. They have also partnered with their local garden centre.

Carrie said: The children’s mental wellbeing is obviously very important to the school, and we know how being close to nature, being able to watch butterflies and bees, is so beneficial. We have been donated a tree which we will plant to commemorate the jubilee.

She added: Our local nursery, Bunkers Hill have offered to help us with the planting scheme and supply us discounted plants and we’d really like to work with Oxford’s RAW workshop for our benches.”  

Carrie commended the children for their motivation to ‘get their miles in’, and said her own children, who were part of the efforts, loved the sense of collective achievement.

 

 

 

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok

Got a story for us? Send us your news and pictures here

List an event for free on our website here