Class Ambassador Collective Worship - The reintroduction of pine martens to Cumbria

Class: Church Links & RE Year: 2022 - 2023

This morning we welcomed parents and families into school to join the children for today's Collective Worship led by the school's Class Ambassadors. This is a group that is elected each term by their classmates and meet weekly. Each group looks at an injustice in the world that they would like to act upon. This group care about animals and wanted to focus on the conservation of an animal close to extinction. Through their own research they found out about a story of the first pine marten being spotted in Cumbria over the past 10 years.

This story inspired our children to learn more about these secretive creatures and find out the reasons behind their numbers falling. Through their research they have worked alongside Mic Mayhew @ BOOM (Back On Our Maps) who has been working with The University of Cumbria in planning a project that would see pine martens return to Cumbria, hopefully in large numbers. In addition we have worked with Vincent Wildlife Trust who successfully reintroduced pine martens into Gloucestershire. Hopefully they will come into school in the new year to work with this group. 

As well as raising awareness about the plight of pine martens, we wanted to raise money to help Mic @ BOOM to purchase a new wildlife camera and will be asking for donations of £1 during Christmas jumper day on Friday. Mic has thanked us for our interest and promised to send through any footage that the camera picks up. 

The last exciting part of the project will see the group travel down to Grizedale Forest to see dens being installed and who knows we might be lucky enough to see a live pine marten.

Well done Ambassadors on the amazing work you have done this term.  Your classmates, staff and families are all really proud of the enthusiams you have shown to this project and hopefully we will see the power of your work when we see pine martens living happily in Cumbria once more.