RHS School Gardening Awards
We are really proud to have achieved the following Royal Horticultural Society awards:
Level 1
For level 1, we put our school grounds at the heart of our curriculum, giving children ownership of their outdoor classroom. Mary, our specialist outdoor learning practitioner, guides us in redeveloping our grounds back to a working vegetable garden, polytunnel and wildlife garden. We have made new beds and developed new spaces to ensure each class has its own growing space.
Level 2
Mary, our outdoor learning teacher, spends every Friday with us, developing our grounds, teaching us new skills and helping us to grow and nurture our plants. Every child in school (4-11yrs) spends a half day in the gardens every fortnight. The children love it - so much so they they decided to rename their sessions Guardians of the Garden (or GOGs for short). As part of our Level 2 Award we:
- planted trees to provide more shade in Summers to come
- planted bulbs, now decorated our entrance.
- cleared and tidied the polytunnel ready for tomatoes
- rebuilt the veg beds
- built new beds for a sunflower competition
- filled beds with lots and lots of soil and compost
- tidied the willow domes and learned to weave with willow
- starting sowing seeds for our gardens
- new tools have been bought and children are learning to use them safely
Level 3
For Level 3, each class collected a range of materials from home which we could recycle to make bug houses and hedgehog homes. Sticks, bricks, cones, stones, leaves and pallets were used to create four bug hotels across the school and children keep a good eye on what has taken residence most recently. Our most exciting visitor to date was a rather gorgeous toad. The children loved learning about him and took great pleasure in introducing him to our school pond.
In addition, after giving our willow a good hair cut, we have upcycled the waste into bird feeders...mixing up a good suet stew for birds to tuck into. Dream catchers were also made. Chunkier bits of waste have enabled us to edge our old herb garden with a beautiful willow hurdle. We also upcycled old newspaper into paper pots ready for sowing our sunflower and tomato seeds and beans.