This year we have been looking at the issue of sustainability, and how we can reduce our waste.

We have made personal changes in our classroom with our rubbish, and talked about how we can encourage change in our homes and our communities.

After looking at how many food scraps go into our bin each day, we looked at how we could reduce the impact of wasted food. We wrote to Mr Irving to persuade him to let us help Colin build a hen house near our garden. This was hard, because initially Mr Irving said he didn't like chickens! However, after we phoned a chicken expert in Hamilton and asked her lots of questions, we were able to convince Mr Irving that getting chickens would be a great idea!

Next, we wrote to Colin, and persuaded him to help us build a chicken run. He agreed to help us, and we really enjoyed building the chicken run.

Our next step was to get some chickens!

Unfortunately, we had spent all our budget on chicken wire...but incredibly, Emma from our office kindly offered to donate us three chickens!

We couldn't believe our luck!

Soon we will need to go with Colin and collect the chickens, and put them in their new home at Riccarton School.

We will be able to feed them our scraps and reduce the amount of food that gets wasted. We can use the eggs in our 'Garden to Table' programme, and we will also be able to donate the eggs to needy families.

It has been a great learning experience. We have learned many skills that will help us in the future.

Keep an eye out for the arrival of our chickens - we can't wait!!​