Year 7 have been working hard this week creating ‘Bug Hotels’.

Year 7 were challenged to create an exciting space for insects, or a creature of their choice to inhabit. These spaces can be a safe haven for anything from hedgehogs to beetles. You can build your bug hotel at any time of year, but you may find you have most natural materials such as straw, dry grass and hollow plant stems in Autumn.

Our pupils created their hotels from recycled materials, natural plant materials, and even put some serious DIY construction skills to good use!

Why not have a go at making your own 5* wildlife retreat?

The RSPB suggests suitable materials include:

• Dead wood and loose bark for creepy crawlies like beetles, centipedes, spiders and woodlice
• Holes and small tubes (not plastic) for bees, made out of bamboo, reeds and drilled logs
• Larger holes with stones and tiles, which provide the cool, damp conditions frogs and toads like – if you put it in the centre you’ll give them a frost-free place to spend the winter (they’ll help eat slugs)
• Dry leaves, sticks or straw for ladybirds (they eat aphids) and other beetles and bugs
• Corrugated cardboard for lacewings (their larvae eat aphids, too)
• Dry leaves which mimic a natural forest floor

You can even put a hedgehog box into the base of the hotel.

Examples from Georgia Harker, Charlie Brice, Billy Bolton-Ferret, Joshua Hughes, Christopher Hannam and Patrick Kellet.

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