Bee Week – St. Catherine’s Primary School, Penrith.

During June 2023, Penrith Beekeepers led a ‘Bringing a Buzz to the Curriculum’ project at St. Catherine’s Primary School, Penrith.

For one week, all the children in the school from the youngest children in the reception class to the oldest children in Year 6 participated in sessions which introduced them to the world of the honey bee. It aimed to raise their awareness of:

• the value of bees to our environment
• the vital role that they play in pollination which helps plants to produce food that we need to eat,
• the ways that the survival of bees and other pollinators are being threatened and what can be done to help them.

At the end of the project each class presented aspects of their work in an assembly to which parents and friends were invited . It was inspiring to see the creative ways in which the children had interpreted the information that they had learnt through the project and their own research.

Teachers and pupils provided feedback on the project by completing a brief questionnaire.  Examples of their responses are as follows

Which activities do you consider have been particularly beneficial for the children’s learning?

Key Stage 1:

• The practical resources helped the children to visualise what they were being taught.
• The children enjoyed the new experiences- seeing the hive and tasting different kinds of honey.
• The children creating + designing their own flower- following the in put this allowed the children to problem solve and create a flower accessible for a bee.
• The honey tasting allowed the children to develop individual opinions and understand why honey tastes different.

Key Stage 2:

• Anatomy of the bees – dressing up.
• Roles of different bees in the hive
• Looking at an actual hive with bees in
• Flower testing
• Honey testing
• Class 4 said that they were better informed and they understood the problems facing them.
• Being able to see the bees in the hive was absolutely amazing, as the children were able to visualise how the bees interact.
• The anatomy of the bee was a good activity too (when the children were able to dress up at the front) as this was easy for the others to understand how the nectar is transferred.
• Tasting and rating the honey was super, as a lot of children hadn’t actually tasted honey.
• Rating the flowers for pollination was also an interesting activity.

Additional comments:

Key Stage 2:

• The children were literally ‘buzzing’ with excitement about the week and what they had learnt. This was shown in the end of the topic assembly, where the children shared their learning and the beautiful work they had completed. Maths, Science, literacy and art were covered and everything was connected to the National Curriculum and thoroughly thought out. A brilliant week was had by all!
• The children absolutely loved the activities and absorbed lots of facts.
• Fantastic- thank you so much for the time and effort. The children have been talking about it since and have taken on board the importance of bees!
• It was a pleasure to do work with the children that did not rely on digital devices or the internet.