School of the year

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If you’ve just joined the site as a school, you can enter our competition to find the Big Wildlife Garden School of the Year.

Children in wildlife garden

The search is on for England’s best school wildlife garden!

You’ll have until July 2010 to make as many improvements as possible in your school to qualify for our Green Award level. You could create a wildflower meadow, build a pond and install nests for bumble bees – whatever it takes to collect enough points!

Once you’ve reached the Green Award level you’ll be asked send in an article and photos about your garden. Our judges will then scrutinise your entries to select a winner in each of the nine English regions, as well as the overall national Big Wildlife Garden, School of the Year.

Entry to the competition is free, but beware! - to get to Green level you’ll need to become really expert wildlife gardeners.

We’ll be announcing more details of the competition and keeping a track on entries throughout the school year, so look out for the next update in our news section.

The Big Wildlife Garden, School of the Year Competition

Summary of entry procedure and conditions;


  1. Schools register their garden on the Big Wildlife Garden website, select option requesting to enter School of the Year competition

  2. Schools progress through each award level – Bronze, Silver, Gold and finally Green – by collecting points for each wildlife wonder added to their garden

  3. On submitting the Green Award challenge, all schools that have opted into the competition will be evaluated by Natural England’s judging panel.

  4. Last date for submission of the Green Awards challenge is July 9th, 2010

  5. Winning schools will be notified by September 7th, 2010. Categories will be School of the Year, National Winner x 1; School of the Year, Regional Winner x 9 (East of England, East Midlands, London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber)

  6. Winners will receive a commemorative plaque, presented by a local personality. Presentations will take place by agreement with schools during September or October 2010.



Note: if you want to enter the competition after you have already registered your school garden simply click Edit Profile and check the competition tick box before the closing date.