| Links to the story | Key Stage 2 and 3 programmes of study | Possible learning outcomes | Big ideas |
| Celebrating mushroom season | “Pupils should study and raise questions about their local environment throughout the year. They should observe life-cycle changes in a variety of living things, for example, plants in the vegetable garden or flower border, and animals in the local environment. ” (Year 5 programme of study) | To understand the importance of fungi and mushrooms to the wood. | flow and recycle adventures in time and space autumn stories being and becoming life depend depends on life organisms are organised |
The sudden appearance of mushrooms in the wood in the autumn is a reason to celebrate. The spores will spread through the wood and new fungi hyphae will grow from them. The influence of the fungi in the wood recycling system will continue for another year. Without fungi doing this silent work, channeling the flow of nutrients to the trees in the wood, the wood could die.