CHILDREN in the Wee County learned about the importance of bees last week thanks to a visit from a Forth Valley group.

Young pupils at St Serf's Primary School were visited by On the Verge who explained to the children the importance of bees and taught them more about nature.

P1 teacher Lorna Laing said: "There was a buzz in St Serf's last week. In collaboration with our ELC, the P1 learners had a visit from On the Verge and the children found out the importance of bees and sowed lots of wildflower seeds.

"A big thank you to Leigh and Nick from On The Verge who came out to to support this activity, to Les Sharp, our councillor who signposted and supported this project and [also] the Criminal Justice Team who prepared the ground, by digging and removing the turf for our new wildflower areas."

Leigh Biagi, founder of On the Verge, added: "We were delighted to work with the younger pupils at St Serf's primary school and nursery last week to sow nearly 40 square meters of wildflowers in the school ground.

"The children did a great job of the sowing and showed a good understanding of the importance of helping to support pollinators by providing food sources for them.

"They appreciated that as bees work very hard to help provide food for us, then we should be doing all we can to provide food for them."

Leigh says it's great that On the Verge can allow children the opportunity to learn more about nature.

Leigh continued: "Children are generally curious about nature and happy to get their hands dirty sowing up the flowers.

"It's great to give them a chance to watch the flowers develop through a season and see how the insects are attracted by them, it connects them to nature in a way that classroom learning is less able to do.

"We believe that this practical, hands-on experience of the lifecycle is an important part of a child's learning and one which is often missing from the national curriculum-and it's great fun too.

"We couldn't do it without the help of Clacks Criminal Justice Service who prepared the site for us and we would like to say a big thank you to them as well as to St Serf's for inviting us along."