Junior Forester Award

Glenurquhart Primary School pupils were recently presented with the Junior Forester Award by Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant for Inverness James Wotherspoon.

Depute Leader of Inverness and Area, and local Ward 12 Member, Cllr Chris Ballance said: “It is wonderful that the young pupils of one of our local schools have worked hard to better understand and take care of our environment. The children have demonstrated their new knowledge and skills brilliantly and I am delighted to hear their efforts have been acknowledged with the unique commemorative coin. A big well done to everyone involved.”

The Queen’s Green Canopy, working with the Royal Forestry Society and Scottish Forestry Society, created a special edition of the Junior Forester Award for the Jubilee year. The Royal Mint provided the Queen’s Green Canopy with 7,000 commemorative coins to present to the first 7,000 children to complete the award.

25 children from last years’ P1/2 class, with teacher Mr Adrian Macleod, achieved the Junior Forester Award by completing six different activities. These included: tree identification from leaves; identifying risks in the local forests; learning about minibeasts and forest wildlife; building a bug hotel; planting wildflowers in the P1/2 garden; explaining how to take care of the local environment to their P7 buddies.

Head Teacher for the school, Kerrie Laird said: “I would like to thank Mr Wotherspoon for visiting our school and presenting the special Jubilee coins to our pupils. We are very proud of the children’s achievements as we help them to understand, be interested in and show responsibility for caring for their local forests.”