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Kent primary schools prepare for butterfly release

Phil Harrison
BBC News, South East•@philharrison77
Reporting fromBlean
BBC Five pupils at Blean Primary School with butterfly chrysalises in net containers in the garden at Blean Primary SchoolBBC
Pupils at Blean Primary School are part of The Butterfly Project

An academic has teamed up with primary schools in Kent as part of a butterfly release project.

The scheme aims to encourage expression through positive change with children creating poetry and artwork based on the natural world.

Tom Delahunt, a senior lecturer in Nursing at Canterbury Christ Church University, has been hosting reading sessions with children, and planting butterfly sanctuaries in school gardens as part of his PhD research into creative therapeutics.

"Butterflies are my metaphor for further change within the current education system for those like me who are hidden disabled," said Mr Delahunt, who has dyslexia.

Pupils at Blean Primary School have been working with Mr Delahunt since September.

They have watched the insects morph from caterpillars into chrysalises, with their final transformation into butterflies expected in the next week.

Assistant head teacher Lynda Prior said: "The children have enjoyed the project.

"I wanted them to open up their minds and this has really enabled them to do that."

The project is centred around Mr Delahunt's book, the Butterfly Farmer, and it is hoped children involved will be encouraged to be creative.

Tom Delahunt in front of a cherry blossom tree at Blean Primary School
Tom Delahun hhas written a book called The Butterfly Farmer

Mr. Delahun, who is also a poet, said: "For neurodivergent individuals, the world is not just a series of fixed, quantifiable events, but a dynamic dance of patterns, music, and colour.

"When safe and valued, these minds have the unique capacity to see, feel, and express the more subtle, intricate dimensions of existence."

Hero, who is in year five at Blean Primary School, said she now has the confidence "to write or draw whatever" comes into her mind.

Her classmate, Tess, has worked at home with her family on a painting of a tree "that shows that all of your thoughts and worries can fall away like leaves."

Other schools involved in the project include Bridge, Challock, St Peter's Methodistt, Lady Joanna Thornhill primary and Whitstable Junior.

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