Junior School celebrate their Level 3 Gardening Award

We are proudly celebrating gardening clubs’ efforts and progress which has been recognised with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Level 3 School gardening award. This reflects the fabulous work that our students have made across this academic year and last, in sunshine and rain.

The award celebrates knowledge and skills for keeping your plants healthy and using planet-friendly approaches when you are gardening, as well as extending the range of plants you grow.

The pupils can name and have grown a wide range of plants including: potatoes, tomatoes, courgettes, carrots, spinach, basil, spring onions, beetroot, runner beans, borlotti bean, sunflowers, nasturtium, calendula, strawberries and iris.

They have worked hard to keep the plants healthy by:

• considering the spacing of the seeds and thinning seedlings to allow the plants space to thrive.
• Around the beds we have laid down cardboard and mulched this with wood chip to prevent weeds growing and retain soil moisture.
• We created our own newspaper pots and then planted these into the ground to avoid disturbing the roots.
• Established a compost bin which is filled each week with vegetables scraps from the school kitchen as well as using shredded paper from the office.

To create a planet friendly garden we have:

• used peat-free compost
• not used any chemicals
• grown from organic seeds
• reused plant pots and created our own pots with newspaper
• created labels from yogurt pots
• reused materials like string to guide and support plants
• reduced our food miles by growing own vegetables.

The pupils and I have learned a lot together in the garden, but we have also laughed a lot. Time spent outside in nature is so valuable for our wellbeing and understanding the world in which we live. When asked about their highlights from the year they all mention proudly the 52 carrots we harvested and the song we made up and sang on repeat about Mrs Bird ‘Being in a leaf bin’.

“Being in gardening club makes me feel really excited because I get to go outside and get muddy.”
Bela M (4AJ)

It never fails to surprise me how much fun can be had outside if you’re wearing the right clothes and in good company. I look forward to another year of gardening and working towards our level 4 award.

Mrs Claire Bird
Junior Teacher of Art