School with Passion for Amphibians

Lee Ashton is Head Teacher at Lower Kersal Community Primary School in Salford, and got in touch with Froglife to tell us about his frog-friendly pupils. We were thrilled to hear from him, and very impressed by all the efforts made by the pupils to help frogs.  Here is Lee's story so far:

“I wanted to share with Froglife some of the work children in my school have been doing to help raise awareness of local amphibians.  We have a create a huge ‘Wind In The Willows' inspired display, complete with an interactive TV screen, testing children's knowledge of frogs and toads, and our very own 5ft Mr Toad (kindly created and donated by a local artist who had heard about our work). Our area has lots of amphibian-related books contained within it in the hope that children will take them home and learn more about our frog and toad friends!

 As part of the display, children are donating their change from drinks purchased in their dinner hour. This money will be then sent to you as they are worried about the spread of red leg and they would like to help. As a thank you for the generosity, all children who have donated money will have the chance to win a stuffed soft-toy frog. At home children have worked with parents to create frogs for display, and much of the work displayed in our ‘Wind In The Willows’ area was produced by children in their own time.


Some of the fantastic newt artwork from Lower Kersal School

In addition to this, as part of their work on Rivers, Ponds and Streams, Yr 5 have produced some large Great Crested Newt display work. We were so pleased with the finished results that we have now had one of these professionally printed onto A0 paper and framed for display in our main entrance area. We are also entering the Great Crafted Newt competition.

You can read more and see some lovely pictures here.

Finally, some children gave up their dinner hour to build some frog and toad houses out of scraps of wood. These have now been buried quite close to our pond. The children have been thrilled to spot a toad quite nearby and also some small wriggly tadpoles swimming about in their pond!”

- If your school fancies getting more involved in conservation, there are lots of resources on the Froglife website here
- Fancy making your own newt? Find out more about the Great Crafted Newt competition here
- You can also help support our work through donations here

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