Living Walls

We are really excited to have had our funding extended to continue working with the Royal Society of Education and our STEM partner from the University of Loughborough on our Living Walls research project. 

A living wall or green wall as they are sometimes called are vertical gardens. They are a great way of incorporating lots of plants into a small space. As our school has limited indoor and outdoor space available for growing plants, we decided living walls would be a great way of allowing us to bring nature into our classrooms, communal areas and playground. 

Our project involves monitoring the impact on children’s well-being when learning in a greener and more natural environment, both in the classroom and outdoors. Living Walls also increase our connectivity to nature, deepen our understanding of plants and enhance our learning environment. As well as allowing us to explore opportunities to connect and learn about climate and sustainable living. 

We now have several Living Walls in school- our newest one in the Shine Room will help us to monitor the impact of plants on managing anxiety and mental health. As well as introducing plants into Living Walls, we have added indoor plants such as spider plants, aloe vera and ivy in pots around the classrooms as these types of plants are natural air purifiers. 

We have already seen an improvement in air quality as a result of having plants in classrooms and communal areas, also feedback shows that the plants are having a positive impact on concentration, mood and our general wellbeing. 

Our project is important as we are acting as Tomorrow’s Climate Scientists by finding out about the living conditions needed to sustain plant life in our school and how we can creatively adapt our learning spaces to include nature.  

Also helping to look after the plants in school encourages a sense of responsibility and ownership; we realise how precious nature is and feel more connected the environment. 

We understand the importance of plants in helping to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so our Living Walls project not only impacts our school learning environment but also plays a small part in helping to support bigger global climate issues. 

Our next steps are to create a Living Wall using air plants and develop an outdoor living wall using edible plants. We are always looking to grow and propagate new plants, so that we can introduce Living Walls into other classrooms and communal areas of the school, creating a sustainable project for the future.

Spring 2023 - Our Living Walls Project, continues to evolve and expand. 

We now have an air plant living wall in our downstairs shared space, edible herb walls and a tropical plant themed focus in Year 4.