THE pupils of Marhamchurch Primary School kindly wrote to the Post inviting them to their beach clean on Thursday, March 3, to learn more about what we can do to help protect our beaches.

After school the pupils congregated at Widemouth Bay beach, welcoming their friends from Stratton Primary School and MP for North Cornwall Scott Mann, and it was clear this wasn’t their first beach clean. All had a keen knowledge of what they needed to do and were eager to get going.

Claire Giner from the 2 Minute Foundation welcomed those presented and ran through what we would be looking for. She said although it was likely we would find large pieces of debris, like fishing twine and nets, there was something much smaller we needed to keep our eyes peeled for; and a chorus of “micro plastics” rang across the beach.

Claire said: “It is really great to see so many children, and parents, taking part today. It is always encouraging to see our young people getting involved.

“I recognise quite a few faces as many of the children attend our weekend beach cleans — they are really onboard with it, I think because they have grown up with it, they know this is what we need to do and they just get stuck in.”

The event had been led by the Eco Schools School Council. As part of the curriculum, the pupils have been learning about the effects of micro-plastics on marine life as well as other environmental aspects. Most recently, the children have been working with a fabulous book called ‘Duffy’s Lucky Escape’, written by Ellie Jackson, about a turtle that eats plastic and is rescued, and this helped inspire the idea for a beach clean.

Mrs S Short, Eco Schools School Council lead, told the Post: “We are going for an Eco Schools award and this is all part of it. The School Council held a survey and decided that their focuses would be waste, litter and school grounds. They then put together an action plan of how to achieve their goals, and this will run alongside their LPAs work.

“They have done bird watching, set up recycling and helped plant some trees around school, which were given as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy project.”

Marhamchurch, a Celtic Cross Trust School, and Stratton Primary School try to work together on projects as often as they can to improve social interaction and help share resources.

Mrs F Glasby, Stratton’s assistant head, said: “We haven’t been able to join up as much as we would like to in recent years due to COVID. For schools like ours in such small areas, linking up is invaluable as we can learn from each other’s school councils.”

Mrs S Short added: “It is great to see Scott Mann attended and is getting stuck in helping the children with the beach clean — School Council is the first step into politics I guess, so its great for the children to get to speak to him.”

With litter picker in hand, Mr Mann said he had been more than happy to leave the city and come down to help the children find and collect plastic and debris from one of North Cornwall’s best beaches.

He told the Post: “The children wrote and sent me some very lovely letters and I was delighted to come out of London and Westminster and come down to help out on this beach clean.”

Mr Mann said he was always impressed with the enthusiasm local school children showed for the protection of our local marine habitats: “Whenever I go into schools all the children want to talk to me about is the environment and what fantastic beaches we have in North Cornwall. We are so lucky to have so many blue flag beaches.

“It is testament to all the volunteers and employees at the 2 Minute Foundation that help keep our beaches clean and free of plastic with these types of events.”