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Was Rye ready for 200 children?

EARLY one morning, while listening to the local news droning on in the background, one of the items made me sit up and take notice. It was the dreadful acknowledgement that many UK children do not know that carrots grow in the ground. Worse still, in its raw state many did not recognise it!

These are not just youngsters who live in cities. This food growing ignorance is rampant in rural and urban areas. Perhaps one of the reasons is that most food is now bought at the supermarket and comes in plastic packages.

Well, I don't have any real answers but do have first-hand experience of our youngsters lack of knowledge of what goes on in the countryside.

I have been working one day a week in a rural school on a music and sound project with a wildlife theme. Funded by Creative Partnerships - a national programme managed by Arts Council England, giving young people in disadvantaged areas across England the opportunity to develop their creativity and ambition through partnerships between schools, arts organisations and practitioners - the children I am working with are rural, home dwelling youngsters in East Sussex. Many of them also live by the sea.

On my first day I took in bird sound recordings I had made locally. One of these was the cuckoo. After I played the recording I asked the children what they thought the bird was. A sea of blank faces stared back at me for a few seconds then a bright lad suddenly called out "A cuckoo clock, Miss." Then another child added "Yea, my mum's got a cuckoo clock that sounds like that!"

"So you think I've recorded a cuckoo clock then guys?" I asked them noticing the look of horror on their teachers' faces.

"Like, why would you do that then Miss?" they asked me quizzically.

I then spent the next ten minutes telling them what a cuckoo is and does and that my recording was made in a village where many of them live. Their faces were a combination of awe and horror as they learned about the parasitic cuckoo which they clearly knew nothing about.

I must emphasise that this is not the fault of teachers. Both the teachers I have been working with try their best to introduce non-curriculum information to the children. The curriculum the modern teacher has to deal with bares little resemblance to anything I remember as a child! Even if, on a sunny day, the teacher wanted to take the children out for a "nature walk" the spontaneity would be lost due to the horrendous amount of "risk assessment" checks they would have to make before they could even leave the classroom.

So, back with the children who, after a month of listening and a visit to the local nature reserve, are far more aware of the first signs of spring and local birdlife.

We worked together collecting sounds from the local environment, wrote a song about spring and made bird sound masks.This activity culminated in the first ever Walk on the Wildside Children's Parade in Rye town .This procession launched the third Wildlife Weekend supported by East Sussex County Council.

Was sedate Rye ready for 200 children brandishing banners and mimicking the sounds of cuckoos and chiffchaffs the teachers and I wondered?

Well, as you can see from the photographs, the kids and their families had a good time singing about the emergence of spring and displaying glorious banners depicting local wildlife.

Now I even get stopped in the street by kids who tell me enthusiastically what they have seen or heard. They bring in remains of birds eggs asking "Did the cuckoo do this?"

Most of them have heard a live cuckoo now. They have become aware of their surroundings and actually stop and listen. Small, local initiatives like this help the community learn more about what's on their doorstep.

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