A does not have access to a garden at home. Since he started at Glenbrook almost three years ago, A has demonstrated an enormous enthusiasm for exploring the school grounds. At Glenbrook, we are in the fortunate position of having a range of shaded and sunlit grassy areas, trees, raised beds and a semi-wild enclosed area used for Forest School and other outdoor activities. To support A’s social and emotional wellbeing and to nurture his love of gardens and gardening, we purchased a range of child-sized gardening equipment, including wheelbarrow, rake, hoe, spade, sweeping brush, gardening gloves and over-trousers for wet weather. It soon became clear that through gardening and working in the natural environment with his ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) A could explore his feelings and emotions much more successfully than through lego or draw-and-talk sessions. A thoroughly enjoys his ELSA gardening sessions and looks forward to them with a passion. He delights in the opportunities for role reversal, giving the adult instructions on correct use of equipment and how to manipulate tools, with comments like “Don’t forget to put your gloves on” and, “If you want to be a professional like me you must pay attention to what I’m doing.” He frequently says, “I love gardening” and tells the adult, “I could sort out your garden if you like.” A generally lights up during his gardening sessions and becomes much more talkative and animated. With the support of the adult and the use of his gardening equipment, he has tidied up the garden areas around school, prepared areas for planting and tended the raised beds, thereby encouraging others to use and enjoy these special outdoor areas. He especially enjoyed taking part in a previous sunflower growing competition and is now looking forward to planting a range of seeds in the newly prepared beds and garden areas following his class’s survey of the biodiversity in the school grounds. I think A would be thoroughly deserving of the award for most enthusiastic young gardener.
I am nominating all three of my children because over the past few years they have become confident planters. Planting in their large pot in the garden. All siblings begun planting during COVID, which started with the youngest sibling Josiah. Due to squirrels eating his sweetcorn, he became very disappointed. After watching the sweetcorn grow taller than him, and then watch the squirrels eat his sweetcorn broke all their hearts. They tried to shout out at the squirrel by the time they got to the corn the damage was done. During 2022, his two older siblings got more hands on. All three worked together on a weekly basis to maintain the strawberries and raspberries. Watering and adding mulch. Few weeks ago they came across a challenge when the strawberries looked died. This was due to the hot weather and young planters forgot to assist with watering. This gave them a greater understanding and importance of watering is just like how a human has to eat. The garden a special place as the children feel free, and happy their creation has not be eaten by squirrels. I most of all love when the children and especially the youngest does not mind getting his hand dirty. He happily pulls out the weeds of the ground with no gloves and shouts out I got the roots mum. Also when walking down the road they are able to identify some plants or the discussion in the supermarkets about how their fruits taste a lot sweeter than the shops.
Michael Tippett College supports young people with learning difficulties in the Lambeth area. Over the last few months, students from the college have been running a project at the Black Prince Trust Community Hub to rejuvenate the hub and improve the surrounding environment. Over a large number of voluntary hours, their students have constructed and installed a series of benches and flowerbeds across our site, which has had a tremendously positive impact on the surroundings and have improve socials areas where participants at the hub can sit down and engage with each other. In additional, the students are designed a mural in our car park which gives a much more friendly feel to the hub and the local community who use it. Overall, the students have done a fantastic service to the hub and I would highly recommend them.
The year 3 nurture group have been having gardening sessions every Thursday this year at Hitherfield. They are a group of 7 children who who have extra needs, that are very varied. As the weeks have progressed their love of gardening and nature has grown considerably, and they are so enthusiastic and excited whens Thursdays come round. They all work together amazingly and collaboratively and are very respectful and caring to the minibeasts in the garden. One of the children has an enormous love of lady birds, we had to rescue a lot of lady birds and lady bird larvae off some old broad beans we were digging up and the children were amazing gently transferring the minibeasts to new homes. They love watering, planting and weeding and gathering up green waste for compost. Each week their enthusiasm and love of the garden grows, and their teaching assistants have begun to really enjoy the garden too.
The gardening club at London Nautical School has worked very hard over the last 7 months to green areas of their school and contribute to the community garden in Bernie Spain Gardens opposite the school. The gardening club is made up of 10 students from the Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) Resource Base and is supported by their brilliant teachers and the Coin Street community gardening team. The boys have learnt a range of skills including sowing seeds, planting bulbs, plants from pots and bare root plants, pricking out seedlings and transplanting small plants to the garden. They have planted up and looked after 4 planters on their roof garden with strawberries, raspberries and a range of flowers. They have grown tomatoes from seed, looked after them on window stills and now transplanted them to Bernie Spain Gardens to continue to grow. They have planted sunflowers seeds as part of the Better Bankside sunflower challenge and are looking forward to seeing them grow. In recent weeks they have been learning about feeding plants through making nettle tea and learning about composting. The boys have enjoyed trips to Bernie Spain Gardens and being outside of their classroom environment. Some of the boys have shared storied about their gardening experiences outside of school, helping parents or grandparents in the garden. They have loved looking for gaps in the grass and filling them in with grass seed and stamping them down. They have enjoyed seeing wildflowers seeds that they sowed in the spring turn into an area full of poppies! The boys have all been engaged in the weekly sessions, asking questions, remembering information from previous weeks and watering the plants in-between sessions. They boys are a diverse group and have different strengths that we have used by sharing tasks out between the group. Some of the boys have developed good knowledge about gardening and plants and are keen to learn more. A few of the boys love the science behind growing and others enjoy the connection with nature. The consistency of the boys and the school has allowed the sessions to flourish, even when the lead teacher was away for a few weeks another teacher stepped up to take ownership of the project and the boys continue to take part in a very positive way. The care and attention that the teaching staff provide the boys has really facilitated their engagement in the sessions and has been great to see. Thank you for Incredible Edible Lambeth for providing some initial funding for the materials for the gardening in the school and thank you to Lambeth Wellbeing Fund for providing support for Coin Street community gardener’s time. The boys are keen to continue to take part in gardening sessions next year, hopefully they will be able to eat some of their tomatoes and strawberries as a reward for all of their hard work. The group have learnt about edible flowers and although they haven’t tried to eat any they have persuaded the teachers to! This group really deserve recognition for their hard work, willingness to learn and the humour and joy that they bring to their gardening. We have some photos of the boys in the sessions but need to check consent before we can share.
Reay Garden is a much-loved school nature garden. It provides a wonderful wildlife sanctuary in the heart of Lambeth. We keep honey bees, have a wildlife pond, fruit trees, a fire circle and lots of raised beds around the school playgrounds for growing vegetables. I love how much children discover about nature on their doorstep by exploring and playing. It has become a habitat for lots of different animals including nesting birds and breeding frogs. The garden is used by many children throughout the week for subjects across the curriculum. This might be practical maths using sticks and leaves or storytelling, science investigations, observational drawing, science investigations… the list goes on. Some children with SEND or emotional needs come out weekly in small nurture groups or for sessions to assist their maths and literacy in a more practical way. Food growing is also very important for children to learn where their food comes from and try new foods freshly picked. Sometimes they eat them raw straight from the plant. Other times they or the school cooks prepare it so they can enjoy it with their lunch. Some of the older children, like Rodyiah choose to spend their break times looking after the raised beds and growing more plants. Rodyiah is an incredibly enthusiastic child who has an admirable love of learning. When asked about what she likes about gardening she answered “learning lots of new things and discovering different insects and mini beasts”, and she loves “sitting and looking at wildlife”. She particularly enjoys planting and watching things grow. Rodyiah is good at encouraging others to take part by telling them “how fun it is and how you can make a difference by growing plants to help our planet.” We discussed how one of the things she found hard about the Covid lockdowns was not being able to grow things at school. What she loves about the garden is how it has “loads of wildlife… the pond…seeing frogs… climbing trees… looking for birds… exploring.” She explained how keeping bees provides us with honey and helps our planet. Rodiyah also said she likes the greenhouse as it is “a safe place” for plants and they are “warmed by the windows”. Finally she told me how much she loves tasting the raspberries and wild strawberries and “seeing birds as you walk to school”, past the garden.
We’ve held the allotment for a few years. To be fair. We are a busy family. It’s not a perfect garden. We are still learning. The plants are mostly sown by the three kids (Ryker’s brothers, Leo 9y/o and Tyler 7y/o) so not exactly straight lines. Ryker works the hardest and truly enjoys reaping the rewards of the seasons. With time my only goal is to create lasting memories of sunshine and laughter, of family and fruit, teaching and experiencing the true meaning of the seasons as we grow with our garden.
