Food growing in schools isn’t without its challenges! This blog offers suggestions on how to keep the garden growing using our Early Years or Primary Growbag Do-It-Yourself package.
First things first, find a staff member to lead:
The role of the garden lead is to get to know what’s in the Growbag DIY package and make the digital and hard copy resources accessible to all staff members. All teaching staff involved are signed up to our monthly email Growbag reminders too. With a lead in place and everyone knowing what’s what, you’re ready to grow!
Don’t let lack of skills and confidence be a stumbling block:
The garden lead does not have to be a gardener! And neither do any of the teaching staff. Don’t let lack of knowledge or low confidence be a barrier to using the garden. The resources we provide are designed for teaching staff with little gardening know how. If you pull up a carrot by mistake – well, hey – at least you’ve grown it, however small or wonky it is and it can lead to all sorts of questions e.g., which part of the plant are you eating when you munch on a carrot?
How to fit the gardening into a school day. Here are some suggestions that we know work in schools:
One garden visit per month
Timetable an outdoor 2 hour session for one class per month: The class gets done all the jobs in the diary for that month. Give the class a window of a week to get outside and run the session. They can choose a fine weather day that week and fit it around other priorities that come up. Remind the children to bring wellies and coats in the day before.
What and how many year groups to work with: It’s important each class gets more than one visit over a year so a sense of responsibility for the garden can develop. You might choose to work with only a few year groups over the course of one academic year, or even just one. The embedding of skills and knowledge will be far deeper.
How to run a whole class lesson with gardening attached: With the support of a TA or supporting adult, take a whole class out and get gardening jobs done at the same time. Set up a lesson that uses the outdoors and/ or the garden as a starting point. Why not use a lesson from our Science Schemes/Early Years plans, or take a lesson outside that you’ve planned already.
It’s best to divide the class into 4-6 teams and while the lesson is going on, one team at a time is taken off to work with the TA, teacher or supporting adult in the garden to get the jobs in the Growbag diary done. That team then returns to the lesson activity. If the lesson doesn’t make it outside for whatever reason, the supporting adult can take the teams out to the garden throughout the day or at any point that week.
One bed, one class
Each class can be allotted one bed or group of beds that they look after over the year: With prompts from the garden lead and our monthly reminder emails, let each class take control of how and when they go out to look after their bed. They could take the whole class out or send groups out with support. This approach engenders a feeling of responsibility and enables a class to chart the seasonal journey in greater detail.
Small group/nurture
If you don’t have support staff available, which is becoming more of the norm unfortunately, you can include the garden in existing small group nurture work or set up a garden club. Small groups working the garden is often the easiest way for the jobs to get done. The results can still be shared with the whole school.
Make the garden part of school life
Whatever approach you take, a school garden has the potential to be an invaluable resource. It doesn’t need to be a show garden like you see on the telly (who’s got time for that)! But you can make it a unique garden for your school and a talking point. Here are a few suggestions for making the school garden part of school life:
- Set up a committee of head gardeners (one child from each year) who can support the garden lead or use your existing eco team. To be a head gardener is a responsible job: they can share in decision making, what to do with produce, collection of compostable school materials, and liaising with classes.
- After a visit to the garden encourage classes to present an assembly or use the garden as a springboard for creative and D&T projects. Take pictures and tell the story.
- Set up an after school and or lunchtime gardening club if staffing allows.
- Include the journey of the garden in school newsletters, messages home and on social media. This might help identify a willing gardening grandparent who is happy to support when classes come out. You never know!
All this is easy to say isn’t it but what if you really don’t have any spare, interested or confident staff member to make the above happen?
It might be that you buy in our targeted Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for training up a handful of staff members. This CPD is full of practical, timesaving and hands on advice for making the most of your school garden.
We hope you find the above ideas useful. We’d love to know what you think. If you have any questions, contact: grow@growtoschool.co.uk
To find out more about The Growbag DIY, enhanced, supported, and the CPD we offer, take a look at:
