The Salopian Summer 2023

SCHOOL NEWS
27
Sharing our Space with Nature
The past academic year has been
a success for the Eco-Committee
at Shrewsbury, thanks to the outgoing
leaders who have been instrumental
in increasing membership and
engagement within the School: Ling
and Issy from Mary Sidney Hall and
Boris, Sasha and Tim from School
House. We owe them a huge debt of
gratitude and we wish them all the best
for the final exams.
The new leadership team of Felix
Kershaw (S L6), Umar Salehuddin (S
L6), Rosie Taylor (M L6), Grace Dale
(MSH L6), Chelsey Dai (MSH 4), Josh
Wong (SH 4) and Tony Gao (R U6)
took over at the start of the Summer
term. This young, keen group will lead
Shrewsbury’s Eco Committee for the
Summer term and upcoming 2023-24
academic year.
Preserving our planet is not just a
duty; it is our collective responsibility.
Aims and initiatives were immediately
established by the new leadership
group. One of our aims is to increase
our environmental connections across
Shropshire and explore how we can
work together to make Shropshire
a greener place. This was put into
action on 18th May, when members
attended the Zero Carbon Shropshire
event: Accelerating Action on
Climate Change, held at University
Centre Shrewsbury. Philip Dunne,
MP of Ludlow, was in attendance,
demonstrating the high status of the
event. Our other notable partnership
this year has been with Packwood
Haugh School, where we exchanged
ideas and visited each other’s
environmentally-friendly school sites.
Since the Eco Committee’s first
meeting in 2018, the pupils have been
campaigning for a wildflower meadow
in School. As reported in the last
edition of The Salopian (Issue 170), a
wildflower meadow was sown next
to Kingsland Hall by members of the
Eco Committee in October 2022. It will
take time to establish into a healthy
and thriving area for wildflowers
and wildlife and it will probably be
five years before it reaches a peak
in biodiversity. The Eco Committee
hope that by sharing more of our
space with nature at school, we can
raise awareness of human-caused
climate change and the rapid loss of
biodiversity around us. The meadow
will be scythed in September and then
dried to make hay bales.
As we all know, Nature is threatened
as never before by climate change,
habitat loss, species decline and the
threat of invasive species. Since 1940,
Felix Kershaw (S L6), Dr Quentin Shaw, Jai Humphries (Ch U6)
we have destroyed four million acres
– that’s around 97% – of all flower-rich
meadows in the UK. We could recover
at least half that figure if only our
gardens, both civic and private, were
freed from chemical interventions and
turned back primarily to native flowers
and shrubs. Through initiatives run by
the Eco Committee, we hope to put
Shrewsbury School, with its links to
Darwin, at the forefront of education
about ‘nature-based solutions’ and
planning for a future that includes and
values the natural world.
The Third Form have been busy again
this year, continuing to plant and
work on the Pollinators’ Garden every
week as part of the BASE rotation on
Thursday afternoons. The garden is
really beginning to take shape and is
looking wonderful. The Lower Sixth
volunteers who have led, guided and
worked alongside the Third Formers
each week in the garden have been
fantastic. The Pollinators’ Garden has
a myriad of different habitats and
flowers to support our pollinators.
In the centre of the garden are the
School’s beehives, which are nurtured
by the School Beekeeping Society
every Monday afternoon.
During this coming year, we are targeting
the problem of food waste and recycling
within School and have begun to work
with Holroyd Howe, the School’s catering
company, in looking to see how we
can reduce food waste. Our sustainable
buffets every other Tuesday for Eco
Committee meetings have contributed to
this, with Holroyd Howe using leftovers
from previous meals to make into a
delicous buffet for members.
This term, we have begun work on
a new Swift Conservation project at
School.