A year after their last volunteering session at Our Lady of the Visitation Primary School in Greenford, a chance encounter in central Ealing brought Team GoodGym back to find out what had happened to the planned wildlife reserve. Last year a veg patch and the pond were well established, with the rest of the space still needing to be cleared and planted.

Returning today, Rachel and her keen pupils had been busy. They had:

• Completed the woodchip path
• Grown some beautiful sunflowers
• Planted wildflower seeds to create a Nectar Highway
• Created a hedge-y area to attract hedgehogs
• Been studying the lifecycle of hundreds of newts in their pond

Lots of discoveries for curious minds.

Other things hadn't changed from last year. The path through the wildlife reserve had again become a bramble highway. This was not the type of highway the school wanted to encourage. Most of the brambles were rooted in the flowerbeds off the path, so while some of the team got chopping, others dove into the dried out beds to dig out any roots that they could.

Therese, Maria, Kash and Steph chopped and dug their way through the whole session, clearing the space. As the bramble levels dropped off, Amy, Scott and Sevan moved onto task 2, emptying the soil from giant planters. Task owner Rachel saved the plants that had survived the summer, then the planters were dragged across the playground. The soil was dug out and placed in ton bags until they were light enough to lift and tip what was left. Six planters later, they were done.

Everyone enjoyed their session at the school, with some marvelling at how much space the school had available. Rachel was really impressed with what the large team achieved and she still has big plans and projects in the pipeline, so we could be back again, sooner rather than later.

"Thank you so much. Huge difference." - Rachel

After an unexpected delay caused by a broken wrist, GoodGym Ealing were back at Our Lady of the Visitation school in Greenford today to complete a task they started back in May. Two tonne bags full of wood chip were waiting for Mairaj, Kash and Sevan to create a path in a nature reserve requested and designed by the school's children.

The nature reserve was part of a larger transformation at the school, which has reduced their CO2 emissions by 20%, created a vegetable patch complete with baby pumpkins and repopulated a pond with plants, frogs and newts. They'd even made courgette cake for the 480 pupils from some giant marrows they'd grown. This was certainly a worthy cause to be helping during Ealing Climate Week. The nature reserve was looking a little unloved though as trip hazards - like resurgent brambles - meant that it wasn't safe for children to enter. With task owner Rachel, GoodGym would help solve that!

The 2 tonne bags seemed like a huge task for 3 people, especially as they were placed 100m away from the nature reserve site. The wood chip had compressed too after sitting and waiting 3 months for the task to happen. The team worked to loosen up the bag contents as they scooped it into wheelbarrows and they were really efficient at creating the path which Rachel lined with anti-weed matting.

After 40 minutes, Mairaj thought that one of the tonne bags could be lifted and he was right. It was heaved onto the sturdiest wheelbarrow and carefully rolled down to the path and emptied. At that point, everyone realised that with only a quarter of the path covered, they'd need more wood chip to complete job. Well, they could only work with what they had, so a few more wheelbarrows were filled, then the second bag could also be lifted and it was spread in the nature reserve with 10 minutes to spare on the task.

The half of the path was completed, not incomplete, looked great. Another task will be coming soon, as soon as some more tonne bags appear.

GoodGym Ealing's first visit to Our Lady of the Visitation Primary School in Greenford revealed a huge space behind the building that most schools would be envious of, with play areas and green space. They were part of a year long trial scheme with Sustainability Managers for Schools to improve their environmental footprint. Huge progress had already been made, with the school recently being awarded Distinction status as a Green School. There was more still to do and the children wanted to reclaim an overgrown wasteland to create a small nature reserve, which is where GoodGym came in.

Task owner Rachel, along with children, parents and staff, had already made a lot of progress in the space. That included removing weeds from the pond, which had started to attract newts, frogs and dragonflies that weren't there before. There was still a big list of work to do, including:

• Getting blanket weed out of the pond
• Planting some pond flowers
• Helping to create a path
• Hanging bird boxes
• ...and a lot more

With only 3 GoodGymers at the task, Rachel was asked "what can GoodGymers do in 2 hours for you that others can't?" and the answer was to clear brambles shoots and stalks from the path and mark it out with logs. A classic GoodGym task. Let the digging commence!

For 90 minutes there was digging of brambles, pulling of roots and the occasional cursing following stings and scratches. One particularly large bramble cluster needed Kash, Sevan and Steph to all take turns to dig it out, with Steph eventually being victorious. Steph though he'd struck gold when he found roots that looked like truffles, but the group didn't need pigs to work out that they weren't the real thing, so back to the day job Steph. Kash helped Rachel move logs to mark out the path and by the end of the task, the nature reserve was ready to get a delivery of wood chip to spread along the bramble-free walkway.

And Rachel's view?

"You've done a great job at clearing out a lot of sh!t"

We'll take that complement and we'll be back for more fun tasks at Our Lady of the Visitation school soon.