On Thursday 27 February we took our keen and eager Lower VI IB students out on their CAS Project Day.

CAS Project Days should help meet a number of CAS criteria and should involve working as a group on a worthwhile service activity. This year we volunteered with Wokingham Borough Council’s Countryside Service at California Country Park. The Countryside Service have an important role to play in looking after valuable outdoor spaces. Their aims are twofold – ensuring that members of the public have lovely outdoor spaces to visit, where they can relax, enjoy the countryside and exercise, and to look after the countryside, protecting and encouraging various species of flora and fauna, and ensuring various ecosystems are looked after. We helped with managing an area of heathland. Heathland needs protecting from invasive species and if these species are allowed to take over then much of the wildlife that lives in heathland would die out. Our job was to cut down any plants that were not part of the heathland and then dispose of them by burning. Luckily for us this meant lots of cutting, chopping and burning and using tools such as loppers and saws. Our team proved to be very effective in using these tools and cleared a large area during their day. Well done to all involved – a really enjoyable day out doing something completely different!