Bring back the nature table: the winners

When we launched our campaign in spring to Bring Back the Nature Table, sponsored by Jordans Cereals, we knew that sadly, most schools no longer had one. So we were delighted to discover that many of the school nature tables among the entries were started this year as a result of our campaign and have become a popular fixture in the classroom. Even more hopeful, our survey of primary schools this summer revealed that another 27 per cent of schools are planning to introduce one.

Our own nature table has been live on our website since March, replenished regularly by the CL staff. (Click here to see it.) Back in July, we released the butterflies we hatched on to our building's fast-establishing green roof, the first on an old building in London's West End. (Click here to watch the video.)

In the best school nature table category, teachers explained with passion just how children's lives had been changed as they ferreted out pine cones, bugs of various sizes, frogspawn, flowers and foliage (and in one case a woolly mammoth skull) on their walks. For the best home nature table, children of all ages have shown just how clever and creative they can be when inspired by nature (and helped a little by a parent or grandparent). Read about the winning entries, plus a selection of our favourites.

Winner - Best School Nature Table: Blisworth Community Primary School, Northamptonshire (above)

Blisworth has included nature studies in the curriculum for three years but this is the first year that they brought back the nature table - and they intend to keep it! At the beginning of the summer term, the excited nine-year-olds from Year 4 began turning up to school with twigs, sheep's wool, feathers, nests, eggshells, even a pair of kestrel wings. Teaching assistant Mrs Martin changed the table daily as new finds were added, and said, "The table was the one area that the children couldn't wait to visit, and talk about when they came in." Year 4 class teacher Mrs Langford recalls one memorable afternoon: "Two pupils were waiting to be taken home. But instead of sitting at the computers or playing basketball in the school hall they wandered around the grounds and brought in to me a steady stream of interesting things that they had found. To them, they were real treasures."

Blisworth stood out from other entries for the way the school has made use of its nature table in all its lessons. In Design Technology the children made bird boxes, while the art class studied environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy and created sculptures of their own on the playing field.

Blisworth wins a Nikon Field Microscope Mini worth over £500 (www.nikon.co.uk) and a bird box ViewCam and Nest Box with infrared night vision from Gardenature (www.gardenature.co.uk), worth £179.

Runner-up - St Mary's C of E Primary School, Bucknell, Shropshire

One day, a teacher found an empty half of a pigeon's egg while walking the dog and thought, "I must take this into school and show the children". Then she read about our campaign in CL, sent a letter to parents asking for seasonal finds and the St Mary's nature table was up and running. Teaching assistant Miss Slark says, "Every morning, children and parents greet me with bags and boxes of new deliveries. One pupil who couldn't write before has found his passion for amphibians makes writing about them fun. Our nature table has been an inspiration."

St Mary's also wins a Gardenature bird box.

Winner - Best Home Nature Project: Arron Lymer

Arron's Nature Book is a truly homemade project. The folder is an old Jordans cereal packet, each page a creation of paste, paper, paint and collage depicting the everyday finds and special nature projects of Arron Lymer, age four-and-three-quarters. His parents, Zena and Kevin, admit that they helped a lot but on every page there's a picture of Arron - discovering a slow worm in the back garden, pond dipping, feeding the birds and taking leaf rubbings. We loved the enthusiasm that leapt off every page. There was nothing fancy here; any child and any parent from the past 50 years could have produced it. But Arron and his parents did, and what will undoubtedly become a family scrapbook to treasure marks the start of a growing curiosity about nature.

Arron wins a pair of Nikon Sportstar EX binoculars, worth more than £100 plus a family visit for up to six people to Pensthorpe Nature Reserve, founded by Bill Jordan of Jordans Cereals, in Norfolk.

Runners-up

A Jordans hamper goes to:

Iona Varley of Kendal, Cumbria, age seven, for her woodland project. She made tree ‘passports', a plant identification wheel and collected wild garlic for cooking, all from her local woodland.

Elliot, Gregory and Tristen Duff (ages nine, six and five) of Ruthin, Denbighshire, whose wonderful nature book, compiled with the help of their grandparents, spans February to July and features flower drawings, feathers, photographs, weather observations, leaf rubbings and seeds, with captions written and researched by the boys.

Emilie McDade, age 11, of Highnam, Gloucestershire for her innovative nature photography scrapbooks, which reveal her artistic talent and hard work, as well as her obvious love of the natural world.

Ethan, Samuel and Joshua St Cyr (ages nine, seven and five) of Watford, Hertfordshire, who with their mother regularly make a wildlife adventure of their days out in the woods, to the beach or on the canal. Their beautifully presented finds show just how much they have all learnt about nature this year.

Click here to read more about the nature table campaign